Tori Bedsole
Editor-in-Chief
Asem Abdelfattah
Staff Writer
A multimedia experience by Rachel Strain, a sophomore art major from Newton, will be featured in the Troy University library in honor of Women’s History Month on Monday, March 27, starting at 3 p.m. in the instructional media room.
“Miss Represented” is the first installment in “The Second Gilded Age” collection, which “combines traditional and modern art platforms in order to juxtapose what we focus on in the media with the events we should be paying attention to,” according to Strain.
“Plastered over on the body of a female mannequin, one of the underlying aspects of ‘Miss Represented’ is the concept of what catches the viewers’ attention; surely, a creation of a tuxedo made from chaotic magazine clippings would not be nearly as sensational,” Strain said. “That brings society to question, ‘Why do we focus so much on what women wear?’
“Most importantly, however, ‘Miss Represented’ asks what society’s obsession with the ‘ideal’ female form makes the world overlook.”
Strain said that this art project was inspired by how modern society tends to overlook social issues.
“Our culture became mostly fixated on trivial matters like celebrity lives,” Strain said. “TV shows, tabloids and most of digital media distracts us from social issues that are deeply affected our community, or even the world.
“Seeing that inspired me to create something that would raise awareness about some of these issues.”
Jeneve Brooks, an associate chair and associate professor of sociology at the Troy-Dothan campus, organized the event and said she was impressed with Strain’s exhibit.
“I usually organize Women History Month events at the Dothan campus, and when I had seen Ms. Rachel Strain’s ‘Miss Represented’ exhibit last summer at Wallace Community College, I was completely impressed and moved by her work,” Brooks said. “I immediately asked her if I could feature her exhibit at Troy.”
Strain said that the message she’d like to send through her art is to encourage people to not just look at the world on the surface but to look deeper.
“I want to encourage people to take a deeper look into the world we live in,” Strain said. “I want them to be aware of things happening around them like exploitation of human labor, and sex trafficking.
“While these issues may sound far away from you, they aren’t.”
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