EXHIBITION
North Forbes Park
IMAGES SHOT IN COLLABORATION WITH CENON AT MAV (CENON NORIAL III AND MAV BERNARDO) FOR TALENT FEATURE IN JAPAN’S STUDIO VOICE. MODELED BY CHLOE ALCID.
SwimShoot was an early series that transported the viewer to a tropical neoclassicism & featured our first line of swimwear, hats & visors.
We first visited this mansion for a dog’s birthday party, and were enamored with its unapologetic opulence. For SwimShoot, we inserted ourselves in this space, embodying the excessive, lavish character of the woman who lived there. As this location might not immediately identify with the tropics, the series was an exercise in contrapposto, articulated both bodily & environmentally.
It is our practice of autonomy over our own island imagery that gives us the power to advocate for and objectify our bodies without being tokenized. This performative exploration of the island identity, in its myriad shapes and forms, calls attention to the fictions that constrain and define a reductive tropical trope.