These women around me do not always tell the truth.
Like a scream in the night, they once arose in my dreams and asked me to release them.
They undressed in front of me but kept their masks on.
They whispered words wrapped in Ostrich feathers, in confetti and white laces.
They invited me to magical and chilling places.
And they reminded me of my childhood.
This work explores the universe of women and their continuous, at times unconscious, desire to liberate themselves from the toxic powers of patriarchy. These images represent the women in my family that have been oppressed in a male-dominated society. Fusing fact and fiction, I re-create melancholic scenes, revealing stories of my family’s troubled past. Shot in Binche, Belgium, I challenged myself to only work with members of my family. Besides the personal stories, my work also addresses a symbolic oppression. Binche is known for its Carnival (UNESCO). Also part of our family’s tradition, it has been held by men for the past 500 years. In ancient mythology the woman has no voice. Excluded from the ritual she is reduced to a sexual and mysterious object. That’s where it all started.
