Marilyn by Joana Vasconcelos
Marilyn takes the form of an elegant pair of high-heeled sandals, whose enlarged scale results from the use of saucepans and their respective lids. Positioned almost symmetrically, the shoe refers to Marilyn Monroe's absent figure. The unlikely yet assertive association between the saucepans and high-heeled sandals, two paradigmatic symbols of Woman's private and public dimensions, proposes a revision of the Feminine in the light of the practices of the contemporary world. The recourse to saucepans, sign to which one would associate the traditional domestic sphere of Woman, in order to reproduce an enormous high-heeled sandal, symbol of beauty and elegance demanded by social conventions, contradicts the impossibility of the dichotomic relation of the Feminine in the domestic and social spheres. The Gulliver effect and the monumentality of the represented object thus emerge as panegyric of the feminine duality, insinuating the full realization of individuality through the subversion of the social norm.