ANTHEM

2019

TEMPUS PROJECTS | TAMPA, FLORIDA

The inspiration for Anthem is a series of Polaroid photographs taken in 1998 of the artist laughing in close proximity to the camera. The photographs draw on notions of unruly women and the subversive power of women’s laughter, Babcox reimagines this imagery in the contemporary context of the ongoing struggle for rights to privacy, freedom and protections in large-scale, heavily saturated prints. Inspired also by the writings of Hélène Cixous, and Mikail Bahktin’s notions of the carnivalesque, Babcox explores how women’s laughter proposes a potent form of resistance, subversion and provocation.