The "Women of Winterreise" photo series is a collaboration between Naomi He, model Danielle Quin, and me. This project subverts and reimagines the story of Franz Schubert's song cycle from a queer and non-white perspective. It continues my 2021 collaboration with the A Priori duo, where I created the mixed media integrated art piece "Chronic" for the scenery of A Priori's performance of "Winterreise." "Chronic" is a mixed media installation art piece that uses dismemberment and exaggerated scale to represent the debilitating nature of emotional pain.
In this photo series, we explore the male gaze and the romanticization of one-sided infatuation in "Winterreise" by presenting an alternative narrative to the story of a man agonizing over lost love. We play with queering this storyline about heterosexual romance by featuring Danielle Quin, a queer model, as the object of unrequited love and the embodiment of winter itself. Instead of villainizing or romanticizing this character, Naomi He and I will present her as an unapologetic and self-assured force of nature among the disembodied forest of legs.
