Who's your daddy?

My dad is a 65-year-old man who thinks every woman over 50 is an ugly old wrinkled corpse. He has a strong opinion about how women should look and behave in order to be attractive. Attractiveness being the most important feature of women, so he believes.

I myself am a 35-year-old woman heading towards becoming an ugly old wrinkled corpse.

Growing up with my dad I have unconsciously internalized his expectations of women, making it difficult, if not impossible, to find my own individual truth, or to take a genuine look in the mirror.

Together with my dad I try to investigate these expectations.

Where once his old-fashioned opinion had authority, now I sometimes giggle with disbelieve of what he has become; a historical character that seems to be losing the battle of my future me, or is he?

De kids van Oost

I can remember we had a big chest on the attic at home, filled with costumes and clothes to play dress-up. Me and my sister would play with these clothes for hours. My mother’s wedding dress was by far our favorite. All we could dream about was becoming an adult and be like our mother.

From around the age of 12 my opinion on what I wanted to wear became stronger. All of a sudden I felt the clothes my mother picked out for me were ugly and stupid. I became aware of my own identity, my femininity, sexuality and the opinions of the others.

With these portraits, I work with the influence on mother to daughter and the influence of representation and perception. I photographed these girls between the age of 11 and 14 years old in clothes in which they find themselves beautiful. Next I asked their mothers to bring clothes in which they themselves feel they look beautiful in. I made the girls play dress-up with the clothes and make-up of their mother and took their portrait again.