KALEIDOSKOPE
Website of Visual Artist Maria Lusitano
Modern Woman, collage video, 17 min, colour sound, 2005
Collage film done with a selection of images from current affairs and fashion magazines (Elle, Vogue, Marie claire, Life) from the fifties and sixties. The project tells the story of a Portuguese "modern" woman in the mid-20th century, who tries to deal with her monotonous life by “travelling” through the images and stories that she finds in the magazines she reads. These punctuate and illustrate her monotonous life, week after week. The narrative intermingles events of her daily life and biography, with historical news, such as the capture of Shanghai by the Chinese communists, news of a devastated Europe in the aftermath of the Second World War and other stories, that by feeding her imagination, influence her daily life. The video thus approaches how the printed press contributed to the spreading of the values of a modern society, and how these would later on influence the beginning of feminism in Portuguese society.