ABOUT THIS PROJECT

I first listened to ‘Bye Bye Blues’ repeatedly over a couple of days. Immediately, the up-beat, almost exaggeratedly cheerful tone made me think of kitchen instruments - pots and pans and, by association, the idealized 1960s housewife. This led me to explore mid-20th-century footage on the Prelinger Archives, where I collected scenes from seven films centered on domestic life and the archetype of the “perfect” wife.

Feeling inspired by Pipilotti Rist’s Ever is Over All that we looked at in class and the build-up in the music, I thought I would shape the narrative as such:

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I tried to start off by painting the picture of the stereotypical, subservient housewife and highlighting the idealised symbol of women confined by a patriarchal society.

As the music intensifies, I have the women join forces and rise up to reclaim agency, dismantling (and - quite literally - blowing up) the restrictive structures around them, and reimagining their world.

The final scenes I used are intended to briefly show the aftermath of their revolution: a peaceful, harmonious, liberated society filled only with intelligent, content and powerful women. 
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