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This past summer, Sarah Hughes travelled to Halifax, Quebec City, Victoriaville, Toronto, and Winnipeg to photograph women in two outfits of their choosing — the first one “comfortable and safe,” the second “attractive and sexy.” She then invited each of her subjects to talk about these dual identities. The fifteen women here are a representative sample from a larger work entitled Persona Project: Safe & Sexy, in which Hughes explores the considerations at play in women’s choice of clothing, revealing the influence of personal history and social convention. The photographs are based on early anthropological portraiture Hughes saw while working at the Smithsonian film archives, as well as “before and after” series popularized in magazines in the 1990s — both of which feature head-to-toe frontal perspectives. Viewed collectively, the women’s individual personas come into sharp focus.

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Comments (2 comments)

Shannon: Hello,
I'm not sure where or who gets this note, but if
possible, would you tell Griselda that I also love the way she dresses and the scent of Patchouli oil on her neck. Thanks, macyaka@auracom.com May 20, 2008 20:45 EST

Charles Tysoe: How very trendy. Just what we need from Canada's newest, best and most progressive mag for all of who "get it". Artistic license and all, but why don't you grow up, please. Exploiting a 13 year old girl (does this girl have a mom and dad? Or a guardian with some sort of a brain?) to talk about her sexual anxieties in a location any Haligonian will recognize — OK maybe the two or three who can read, and who might chance upon the magazine. In an age of hellishly clever sexual predators (some of them probably classmates or social acquaintances of poor Amelia), what can you be thinking of? Other than "I am ARTIST. Affirm me!"

It's just art, right? No sexual predator would dare take seriously these plaintive musings. I'm sure if that was the case, Mr. Alexander and all the bright lights around him would have thought of it.

A young girl needs adult role models, security and affirmation in a healthy environment, where she can have her femininity nourished and protected.

You have just made her into human graffiti ; I suppose because there just aren't enough women and girls around willing to display themselves in any degrading fashion for a little fame or lots of money and we can never get enough of it.

Or perhaps you think this is real innovation?

What a disgrace to humanity you are for conceiving and carrying out, using your positions of inflence and power as "reputable journalists", this literary and visual grope of a young woman.

- A subscriber - August 06, 2008 11:41 EST

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