Wannabe is a photographic project about doll-like girls in Japanese culture —about the objectification of these women to serve societal customs that lead to android-like behaviours. It illustrates how people who grow up in a given culture unconsciously feel the need to follow a predetermined role.
With this work, Elisa González Miralles aims to question how societal standards —not only in Japan, but elsewhere— constrain human behaviour and the development of identity. Questions that affect us all, especially considering the obsession with self-projection in today’s society.
With this work, Elisa González Miralles aims to question how societal standards —not only in Japan, but elsewhere— constrain human behaviour and the development of identity. Questions that affect us all, especially considering the obsession with self-projection in today’s society.
Acording González Miralles:
"With this project I want to question how a society and its standards determine the behavior of an individual and limit the development of their identity. I talk about girls who want to look like dolls, about the tranfortaions of these women into objects, to serve society and customs, that generate automatons behaviors.
"With this project I want to question how a society and its standards determine the behavior of an individual and limit the development of their identity. I talk about girls who want to look like dolls, about the tranfortaions of these women into objects, to serve society and customs, that generate automatons behaviors.
The idea of Wannabe starts with a trip that the photographer made to Japan in 2002. At that time the author discovered the habit of "replacing" real women with these hyperrealistic dolls. In 2013, she returned to Japan with the idea of doing work on those objects, but she encountered the paradox that women themselves adapted their shapes and even altered their physical appearance to become replicas of those artificial, anatomically and physically perfect products, but lacking in soul.
The photographs that compose the series Wannabe test the sharpness of the viewer being at times more than difficult to differentiate the images of real women from those that correspond to dolls.
And to deepen this conflict, Gonzalez Miralles uses a symbolic element: the balloon fish, delicious and exclusive meat, but very dangerous if not prepared properly, because it contains a neurotoxic poison that causes muscle paralysis and death by asphyxiation. This fish represents, she says, "the unconscious of these women, who, doomed to meet social desires are necessary to meet the standard of beauty imposed slogans".
![Aínda sen título. White Letter [#3] to Narelle Jubelin. (Elena Asins · Narelle Jubelin · Anna Turbau). Photograph by Roi Alonso, courtesy of Galería Nordés](/sites/default/files/styles/mopis_home_news_category_slider_desktop/public/lead-images/metalocus_narelle-jubellin_carta-aberta_22_2p.webp?h=3b4e7bc7&itok=ALbdeJ3O "Aínda sen título. White Letter [#3] to Narelle Jubelin. (Elena Asins · Narelle Jubelin · Anna Turbau). Photograph by Roi Alonso, courtesy of Galería Nordés")
