1. Formulating Ideas

MY IDEAS

Over the summer holidays I lots of different elaborate ideas for what I could focus my personal investigation on. After a lot of thought I decided that I really wanted to explore Henrik Ibsen's character of Nora Helmer from his play A Dolls House. I find the character of Nora Helmer really interesting as she is a very feminist character who played a big part in the feminist movement.

 I want to explore the character of Nora Helmer in a literal way relating to the idea of her actually being a doll/puppet. I want to do this by photographing myself in the studio and then editing it on photoshop in order to make myself look more doll like. I want to explore the journey she goes on throughout the play and I wish for my final photographs to tell the story of Nora's life and how she broke out of the stereotype for women by breaking the the strings attached to her and breaking out of the marriage she finds herself trapped in. I want to experiment with taking photos of people in puppet like formation but in stereotypically women situations such as in the kitchen and sitting at home rather than being out at work. I would like my photos to portray the power of theatre and the power of women. I would like to see how my ideas develop throughout the project.

I have been inspired by this photograph I found online, unfortunately I cannot find out who took the photograph, but I would like to do a response of this photograph as I feel it speaks so strongly about feminism and makes a statement.

Also for my project I am really inspired by Bjarte Rettedal's A Dolls House inspired photographs.

I find this photograph fascinating as it is an abstract interpretation of Henrik Ibsen's Nora Helmer. I think that the contrast between the two photographs is exquisite as I know that there is a story as to how she got from the first photograph to the second. In the first photograph she is playing with a doll's house and in the play itself she tells her husband that her children have been her dolls that she has played with just as her husband and her father have played with her.  This then contrasts beautifully with the following photograph where she herself is strung up like a doll puppet, she isn't in control of her movements and she relies on another person for all her actions. The fact that both photographs are taken in the same place suggests entrapment. The lack of human presence in both photographs shows a sense of loss and loneliness. The minimalistic colouring shows how vacant excitement is. I also think the first photograph shows a childish streak which is something the second photograph lacks.