Normandie is a visual study and diary of an expedition to the outskirts of France where the aim was to explore and upset the power dynamics between the photographer and the model as two women working together. Since the nude in history and in art has been mainly manifested through male eyes, Burns attempts to redefine the body through a female perspective which is inevitably clouded by the learned visual language of that history. Burns’ practice constantly draws back and references the past to understand the present ideals of the body and how these came into being.
Sylvana Burns the (b. 1994 )is a London based Mexican artist whose work rotates around the female body, its representation and sexuality as a form of existence in itself. The work is a constant search in which the artist comes to terms with the burden of being meaning, specifically being meaning as a female. It is no understatement to say that the female body has been highly looked at and sexualized in our society for millennia within the arts, religion and science. Burns utilizes the body and the idea of the historical nude to question its expression through a contemporary female eye/I.
