Fetish of the Image

The portrayed people are wealthy, successful, mostly straight and white, men. The images come from the most intimate moments of transformation that among Masking fetish subculture. Using silicone, realistic costumes imitating female bodies, Maskers transform themselves into their feminine alter-egos. Here, alike in theater traditions in the past where women were not allowed to act, the men are the experts on how to perform the most seductive kind of femininity. Queer desires are socially tabooed. Yet, Maskers were accepted as a source of revenue. The industry that emerged specially to fulfill them, produce the masks as costly commodities that only few can afford. As a young, middle-class woman, not much connects me with the characters of my work. Fundamentally, my experience of femininity comes from living as a woman while for Maskers, it derives from performing femininity. The only access to and connection with my models was photography. While posing, the men permitted me to look deeper underneath the silicone costumes.