in the name of
Project by Borjana Ventzislavova & Mladen Penev, 2010
In their work “In the Name Of”, Borjana Ventzislavova and Mladen Penev study the phenomenon of submission to various norms and ideals, as represented in the outward appearances and dress codes of representatives of three different cultural and religious groups: Orthodox Jewish men, Western men and women, and Muslim women. The project’s focus is on the way these groups represent themselves, and on how we imagine and perceive them.
Do not the mechanisms that assert strict traditional, religious, or totalitarian norms and those of a society that believes itself to be free and democratic while functioning in accordance with the laws of global capitalism lead to similar phenomena of uni- formity?
In contradistinction to Western culture, the dress codes by which Orthodox Muslim or Jewish believers abide would seem to be highly standardized and not particularly multifaceted. But are we not similarly subject to a diktat, that of global capitalism and mass consumerism? Have advertising and money taken the place of faith and religion?
Exhibitions
Exhibition view, Credo Bonum Gallery, Sofia, 2011
Statements
