Brooke Shaden

“An Unyielding Limb” is an expression of restriction in the most viseral sense. It poses more questions than it answers, which is what I strive for in my images. The image has an inherent duality. Is the person (or animal) trapped, or are they willfully there? Is it dying or is it being born? What is restricting it, and is it even being restricted? All of these questions, and more, make up this image for me.

The question of what is inside the sac is the first question that I answer for myself. My answer is perhaps more personal than yours, because I know that I am the one inside the sac. Yet the answer goes beyond that. If the answer is “a woman”, there are more questions raised by this. What statement does this image make if there is a woman trapped inside of the sac? There are phallic undertone resonating through this meaning. The very use of the word “sac” gives way to a sexual and male-dominant thought process. If it is indeed a woman, and also a male phallic symbol, what does this say?

This brings me to the Pygmalion fantasy of women, a subject you can read more about here. There is a certain stigma or classification that women have been molded into, one that breeds on perfection and idealization. A “perfect woman”, a “pygmalion fantasy” are only a myth. Breaking the Pygmalion fantasy signifies a moving away from an unattainable female status. The photo is a physical embodiment of a woman being molded by this fantasy that people have set into play. It is the physical entrapment of a woman in a man’s overbearing shadow.

On another level the photo is a symbol of birth and death. Under my photo titled “Sac” I wrote: little statue breaking, little baby breathing. There is an implied life and death in these words that I think are embodied in “An Unyielding Limb”. The figure in the sac could be a baby coming into the world, and raises the question of whether or not the world is a good place to emerge into. Should the figure in the sac be scared, rebellious, hateful, or curious? What is this world where people can be placed into such stereotypes? The fabric of the sac mimics a cocoon, and the figure inside a butterfly waiting to break free. If the photo can be about birth, then it can be equally about death. Perhaps the figure has gone to die in this little sac. The shape of the body looks disfigured, contorted and utterly trapped, the same way we are born, the same way we die.

If the figure inside is not, as I have implied, a weak figure, it would be a strong one waiting to break from the mold. The sac could be breaking, the figure could be emerging, and a new future might be coming into existence. What does it mean for my figure to breathe fresh air, to see a world that is unique from the inside of the sac? For me it is a new beginning, a fresh gulp of air that breathes life into tainted lungs. What is this figure living for, and what is it dying for? Is it for everything, or is it for nothing? Is this figure even alive? Was it ever?