Conception
“Lesbian is not an insult” is the first photographic project by Martina Marongiu, conceived in 2013 in collaboration with other four girls from Turin (Piemonte, Italy): Fabiana Lisandro, Dunja Lavecchia, Morena Terranova and Letizia Salerno.
The project aims at exposing female homosexuality, by dealing with the most common prejudices that are associated to it. In some cases the photographs seek to counteract these misconceptions with the aid of explanatory and forthright pieces of text. The key elements in the images are the bodies of the models, the lighting and the black captions. Because the body plays a fundamental role in the discovery of sexuality, the authors decided to turn it into a means of communication: the models’ poses add further meaning to the slogans on their skin, while their figure is bathed in a sharp, bright light and subdued tones.
Context
Italy ignores female homosexuality on any level: the public, the private and often, it is disregarded even by individuals themselves.
Institutions do not recognize the fundamental civil rights and not a single celebrity is out. Even the ones who do not completely hide their preferences avoid coming out.Thus the authors aim at getting the public’s attention thought the strong impact of the pictures and then informing with those specific sentences to destroy prejudices. Therefore, the girls behind this project have chosen to attract the viewers’ attention with powerful visual language and to educate them against prejudices through the slogans.
They’ve reflected on the “bog-standard ideas” belonging to both homophobic people and the general common sense. Among these notions: lesbians tend to have masculine attitudes, short hair and they are not attractive; even if they do have sexual relationships with each other, nothing is going to be more satisfying than male penetration anyways; in a lesbian couple there’s always one to play the man and one to play the woman; lesbians hate men; a woman may be attracted by other women now, but it’s probably just a phase; if a person really is a lesbian, then she must keep a low profile and not display her homosexuality in public.
The slogans on the models’ bodies take inspiration from these stereotypes. “Not every lesbians have short hair” ”With her, it’s like walking on air, I don’t even need legs, just two fingers”, “Don’t look for someone to fill in the man’s shoes”, “I love women, I don’t hate men”, “I’m lesbian and that’s not a phase”, “I don’t show off, I exist”.
The word lesbian is used abundantly in the project, with the specific aim to overcome the bias attached to it. The term is in fact very controversial in Italy and it’s often frowned upon even by lesbian themselves. In Italian, “lesbian” is sometimes an insult and sometimes is not, but in both cases it is a word that is almost never pronounced, as if it was a derogatory label in any case. As a matter of fact tough, this is the only Italian word available to represent a homosexual woman, thus the necessity to promote its use in a positive light in the everyday language.
At the moment, the project is composed by 12 frames but the intention is to develop it further.
Public response
The first exhibit took place in Turin, in June 2013, in occasion of the sexual liberation festival “Plaza del Sexo”. Later on, the project was presented in a few other venues in Northern Italy.
The first big response from the public came during Paratissima (an artistic event that promotes young talents) in 2013, where Martina Marongiu placed herself among the first 15 artists out of 600 participants. While the previous exhibitions were held in dedicated spaces where the public was rather prone to understand the project, Paratissima was attended by far larger groups, gathering together people of very different age groups, social backgrounds and with their own standards of beauty. The prevailing reaction was laughter; many viewers laughed when looking at the pictures. At the beginning Martina/the photographer was a bit uncertain of the general reception, then she was pleased to notice her work had caused some akwardness in them.
If you’re interested in the project, you can find all the contact details below:
