Unica 1

About the work

Gender traits have largely been shaped and fixed by traditional patriarchal culture. Conventionally positioned as the “other” within this binary relationship of power, women have also internalised a form of self-objectification. Since the 1960s, artists have explored counter-gazes and oppositional gazes in an effort to dissolve the power of looking. “Unica” means “unique” in Italian. I believe that every individual begins without labels or prescriptions about what they should or should not be: each is a being with singularity, complexity and spirit. The title uses the Italian feminine form of “the only one” and seeks to move beyond human-made definitions. Purple, a colour between gender associations and a symbol of power, predominates. Through the interaction of pure blocks of colour and fabric, I seek a simpler expression of gendered qualities, suggesting that people of every gender belong to a whole that shares breath and destiny, and constructing a discourse beyond binary systems of power.