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OST PEOPLE who’ve
spent time in a major
city are familiar with
the uninvited cat call.
Whether you have been the target
or you’ve watched the event unfold,
many of us have heard one individual or another solicit a passerby —
most often a woman — to “give them
a little smile” or “cheer up, baby.”
While some may combat the unsolicited attention with a cold stare,
Brooklyn-based artist Tatyana Fazlalizadeh has an alternative way of
addressing the problem. In a project titled “Stop Telling Women to
Smile,” Fazlalizadeh places portraits
of women in public spaces, encouraging victims of gender-based street
harassment to fight back.
The series began last year when
Fazlalizadeh was finishing a mural
project in Philadelphia. She’d been
contemplating how to address the
issue of street harassment for some
time, having experienced years
of daily occurrences herself. After considering the medium of oil
painting — her primary practice —
she eventually decided to channel
her ideas through public art.
Fazlalizadeh recruited friends
and colleagues to help make STWTS a reality, drawing her subjects
in strong, even confrontational
ART
HUFFINGTON
09.22.13
M
Many of us have heard one
individual or another solicit
a passerby — most often a
woman — to ‘give them a little
smile’ or ‘cheer up, baby.’”
poses that are meant to “humanize” the faces of women in the public space. The portraits are accompanied by lines of text that speak
to the harassers and offenders who
aren’t often called out. “My name
is not Baby,” one caption reads.
“Stop Telling
Women
To Smile”
encourages
victims of
gender-based
harassment
to speak
their minds.