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behind closed doors

VIS312H1 : collage

john h. daniels faculty of architecture, landscape, and design

university of toronto

fall 2022

a digital collage inspired by martha rosler's house beautiful: bringing the war home series that explores ideas of domesticity, queerness, gender roles, and societal expectations

what do you see at first glance happening behind closed doors? what is occuring inside of this quintessential suburban home? now take a closer look and fully examine the space, what else has become visible that you were blissfully unaware of? has it changed the way in which you view behind closed doors and if so, why has it altered your perception of the piece?

behind closed doors invites viewers into the inner world of this all-american suburban home which upon first glance does not reveal anything out of the ordinary. however, the longer one contemplates the photomontage they begin to question what it is they are looking at. the jockstrap, harness, handcuffs, douche, and sex toys make themselves known overtime and begin to paint a different picture than originally thought. the implication of these objects not only invoke ideas of sex and pleasure but queerness and sexuality. the deliberate decision to place a man and a woman in a mid-century home implicitly implies that there is a relationship between the two, likely through marriage at first glance, however, how does that change with the revelation of the other objects in the space? the aim of behind closed doors is to ask questions of how intimate relationships, queer or not, are understood within the domicile and why are they societal expectations of how such relationships should operate.

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