If Only I Had Thorns Like a Thistle: A Visual Exploration of Gender Roles in the Workplace
Photographed by Cam Anderson (Apolluss) and Daniel Oyegade
Writing by Jade Ashley Yong
Photo: Cam Anderson (Apolluss)
Photo: Daniel Oyegade
Thistle: the common name for a group of flowering plants characterised by leaves with sharp prickles. The thistle uses these prickles to defend itself against threats in the surrounding environment.
“If Only I Had Thorns Like a Thistle” is a recent visual project directed by Manchester-based photographers Apolluss (@apolluss) and Daniel Oyegade (@wxvei), which explores the gender roles at play in a working environment. Particularly, these images focus on the treatment of women and their experiences within the workplace.
The project’s central character envies the thistle, wishing she had the same means of protection as the plant is accorded by its spikes. She finds difficulty in reconciling her innately pliant disposition with the need to assert herself and avoid being taken advantage of.
Top row shot by Cam Anderson (Apolluss)
Bottom row shot by Daniel Oyegade
What results is a remarkable visual interplay between both feminine and masculine elements: the raw and unbound character of the natural scene is contrasted by the subject’s more aggressive insistence on dominating this environment.
The connotations of facing danger and reasserting dominance are certainly given off by the styling choices for the model—she wears a high-contrast red top paired with a black-bandaged arm. Hence, the ‘thistle’ sticks out like a thorn from the scenery, establishing both the alienation of this figure but also her survival amongst the hostile forks of the trees surrounding her. The model’s bold and erect poses create an analogy of reclaiming; once a docile character, this thistle can now compete with the adversities of her setting. She joins and even becomes one with her environment.
Top row shot by Cam Anderson (Apolluss)
Bottom row shot by Daniel Oyegade
The part of the project set amongst an industrial concrete backdrop is just as powerful in its portrayal of subverted gender roles. These images re-clothe the vulnerable temper of our ‘thistle’ subject in stern corporate apparel, and some are post-productionally rendered in monochrome to convey the rigid, and sometimes oppressive, atmosphere of the workplace.
Rather than arriving at a fixed conclusion of which gendered elements should triumph in the workplace, this project charmingly embraces both. Our thistle model doesn’t lose her gentle nature for a moment; rather, the powers of both feminine and masculine elements dance together to produce a holistic image of a woman’s experience in a working space.
Clearly figurative renderings of the issue of gender roles in the work environment, this project innovatively reconciles art with the political in a way that is both visually beautiful and thought-provoking, content-wise.
Shot by Daniel Oyegade
Shot by Cam Anderson (Apolluss)
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