“She cried” they wrote on her tomb stone

So here I am, finally getting around to writing this article. Just like men artist in the old days used women for muses, my boyfriend gave me the idea to write this article. I hope to transform this into a mini series of rants with a point. 

It’s been a while since I had a good rant. This is partly because I was lazy, and partly because I haven’t had anything good to rant about. But a few nights ago I found the following entry on the “Women’s Guide” Facebook wall: click.

I am appalled. For those of you who don’t know Romanian, I will translate the text and analyze it phrase by phrase in an attempt to establish the boundaries between feminism and stupidity. It is unfair for these types of articles and for this type of thinking to create and change the picture of “empowered women” and “feminists”. There have been too many great women who have struggled for women’s rights in order to let this kind of stereotypical articles foist their shallow values on to the next generation of young women who look for guidance. 

"I love being a woman! Just think if we weren’t women, who would have had the opportunity to give birth to such beautiful and innocent children... we would have looked at THEM (the women) with a sense of regret and mystery, wondering how it would be like."

 So if I get this right, what the author is trying to say is that if her and the other women reading her article (hence the use a “we weren’t women”) were something else (probably males) then someone else would have to give birth. And that would be a tremendous loss. The ex-woman would envy the current woman and would somehow feel like she’s missing something. And that is true, but only in the case when a person is born a woman and during her lifetime is suddenly impaired, has an accident for example and cannot give birth anymore. In this case, it’s true, because women are born with the instinct that they have to give birth. And if you are one if the feminists who doesn’t believe that, you will at least admit that our society and culture enforces that belief on women from a very early age. Any way you put it, the idea is the same, for most women giving birth is something they must do so if that is taken away a trauma arises. 

But if you were never born a woman, how can you miss something that is not in your nature? How can I, as a 21 century European citizen miss hunting in the Amazonian forests? 

Moving away from the logical thought behind the author’s phrases and getting to the point of the opening statement, I fail to see how motherhood is the only true way of fulfilling your potential as a woman. It is one of the ways, correct, and many women cannot even begin to imagine a world without it. But is Mother Teresa less of a woman because she never gave birth? Should a researcher who devoted the better part of her life to science and curing God knows what disease bow her head in shame in front of the woman who picked her family over her career? Have we not gotten over this stereotype?

And I’m not saying, women, leave your babies and go to work, but respect the one who accomplishes something, no matter what that is: family or career. And if you can do them both, and do them right, than good for you.

"If we weren’t women we wouldn’t have known the excitement before a date when you can’t decide what dress to wear or what color lipstick to choose so that it matches the makeup!"

I have to start by saying, have you noticed the exclamation point (!) at the end of that sentence? 

So the second best thing about being a woman (after motherhood) is being able to dress up for the guy who knocks you up to begin with. Cause if it weren’t for this guy’s sperm you couldn’t get to the first great thing about being a woman. So you have get all dolled up, put on makeup that he might not even notice and pick up the perfect dress for the perfect image of what you think he wants to see. How wonderful is that.

This lets me to believe that if you weren’t a woman, but a man, you would have to rely solely on personal charm and personality. Does the author of this text not see how insulting this is to women? We only worry about how we look in front of a man, because, as children, we should be seen and not heard. Oh, sorry, I forgot about the exclamation point. !!!

                "Or we wouldn’t have known what it is to cry when a heel breaks,"

Congratulations! You found the essence of feminine drama and ultimate sacrifice. The broken heel is the symbol for the broken dreams of that wide blue eyed child who discovers that Prince Charming can fall in love with the evil step sister bitch and the Fairy Godmother can have her cell phone off the night of the ball.

In a Wikipedia article I found 9 reasons to wear high heels and 5 of them were sentences in which the soul verb was “appear”. 

“They make the wearer appear taller.

 They make the legs appear longer.

They make the foot appear smaller.

They make the toes appear shorter."

- Wikipedia “High Heel” article

I rest my case in this matter.

                “Or when your best friend tells you that she has just fallen in love.” 

Ok, I get that women enjoy their close friendships, but why do women think that men do not respond emotionally to their guy-friends good news? Men may not dwell over things like a new girlfriend or their shoes wearing out (wink), but I honestly believe that if a person is truly capable of empathy he or she will share, to the full extent, the other person’s news - whether it is good or bad.

“All these little things make us WOMEN. Let us enjoy them to the full!”

So here is the conclusion, at the end of our epic journey into the feminine essence. It’s the little things that make us who we are. It’s the unimportant day-to-day routine that sets our goals, aspirations and marks our legacy. “She cried when her heel broke” they wrote on her tomb stone. 

No! N – O. NO. How have we all come to this incredibly self center, micro analyst, resigned way of evaluating things. It’s the little things that make you happy maybe, it’s the little things that get you through the day, it’s the little things that you try to focus on when everything is shit and you feel like you are on the verge of a nervous breakdown. But it is not the little things that make women who they are. It was not the way she combed her hair under that black veil that made Mother Teresa a Nobel Peace Prize winner. It was not the butterflies in Simone de Beauvoir’s stomach before her date with JP Sartre that made her a great writer. It was not for diet reasons that Emmeline Pankhurst went on huger strike after founding the Women’s Franchise League. Florence Nightingale didn’t put on a naughty nurse’s outfit during the Crimean War to spice things up like Cosmopolitan would let you believe. 

"And ohhh yeah...I just love being a woman!"

Yes, I bet you do.

Absolute

Sexy women, sexy car, sexy clothes, sexy life, sexy mind. Absolute joy.
 

My bus ride to work

I'm out of inspiration. Or better yet inspiration is out of me. So I just shot whatever I saw out the window in some of the bus stops on the way to work.

Here's a slice of every day bus-riding folk experience for you.

Silent movements

My first video, shot exclusively with my 0.0001 pixels phone camera :-)

Afternoon in our neighborhood

Light, life, love.

Happy World Photography Day!

Tribute to the unknown artist

I got a box, a big one and I glued colored pieces of paper on it to make it look nicer. I think that’s how it started.

We put the box on the desk and we collected all the pictures, both finished and half way done. If anyone asked for their picture we would give it to them, but more often than not no one claimed anything and the pictures would just lay there by the window for days after they had dried. So we collected and put them in the box hoping that they would come back to get them. We waited for days, weeks and the piles of paper were getting bigger and bigger. At some point the big box I had made started to look small.

Some of the pictures were put up on the walls for everyone to see and admire. These were the ones that had been signed. But what about the rest? What about all those other pictures belonging to the unknown artists that left them behind?

I took it upon myself to be the curator of these works. I chose the ones that were, without a doubt, made by children and I selected the pictures that were made intentionally (as opposed to spills or the papers that kids used to wipe their hands). I bent the intentionality rule just slightly to make room for serendipity. I gave them titles and tried to offer them a proper tribute.

This project has given me the opportunity to contemplate. I found great delight in the few seconds I held each one on the wall and shot. I found great comfort in the though that they will never be forgotten.

My orchid

So here I am again. I feel tired in that good way. In that I've been doing something kind of way.

If someone were to ask me what I've been doing and I reply honestly, not too many people will take me seriously. It will go like: so, I've been playing board games like Operation and Snakes and Ladder and Princesses. And I've been making dolls and dressing them up. I've been coloring and putting glitter on anything. I learned how to make a moving puppet and put on puppet shows too.

It's been a while since I've been doing so many things that don't numb my brain and emotions.

Last but not least, my orchid:

Ledras Street - ground zero

Nicosia is the last divided city in Europe.
Ledras is the iconic street for this division.

After the Turkish invasion in 1974, almost half of Cyprus, the northern part, was claimed by Turkey who declared the occupied areas be a "Federated Turkish State". Nicosia was therefore divided by a ceasefire line known as the Green Line. There is still no resolution in this matter as Northern Cyprus is not recognized as a sovereign state by the international community. The United Nations considers the declaration of independence by Northern Cyprus as legally invalid in several of its resolutions.

Nevertheless, a checkpoint was installed; tourists and local folks must show their id to cross over. There are many pictures on the web and also a lot of information so I will not bore you with the politics and demographics behind this. What I am trying to portray is more on the lines of cultural difference between two nations separated by war, religion and mutual discrimination, but who have cohabited for so long on such a small island.

I have tried to document the everyday city life from both sides. I tried not to get too far from the center (manly Ledras street) because it is the dichotomy created in this central point, in the heart of the city and of the country, in ground 0 if you may, that interested me.

Walking down on Ledras street (the Greek side) you feel like in any other European city tourist area: colorful shops, well known fast food chains, bookstores, music shops, cool teenagers, energetic children and so on.

And when you get to the border, the check point, there isn’t much formality. You just show your id / passport and write down on a piece of paper you full name and id / passport number. The person at customs puts a stamp on the piece of paper and that’s your visa.

Walking down on Ledras street (the Turkish side) you feel like in any other Turkish city: crowded shops, lots of jeans and sports shoes, Arabic music, cheerful restaurant owners inviting you to take a seat and eat.

I tried to photograph the same points of interest on each side (shops, posters, ads, and restaurants) but also similar situations (people shopping, children playing). I thought I would photograph more or less the same thing, but on each side, and the differences between the two cultures would speak for themselves. Much to my surprise I found similarities as well as differences and I portrayed those too. It seems to me that being forced to live on such a small island for such a long time makes certain barriers fade. And I actually found those similarities more interesting. Serendipity they call it.

*** Note: I pasted the photos two by two: Greek side vs Turkish side. There is no pattern in the way I joined the photos together, I chose weather one goes on the left or on the right according to aesthetic reasons. If you cannot tell which photo was shot where, that’s fine. I would probably have to double check that myself.