Five Minutes After Birth

Five Minutes After Birth explores the definition of masculinity in modern western society, focussing on the tension between tradition gender roles and more progressive definitions.

Five Minutes After Birth is a body of work which responds to the social conditioning men experience in modern Western societies. Referencing anti-social behaviour, sexuality and traditional gender roles, this work presents both a critical and reflective response to men’s pursuit of power and control, and their inclination to engage in competitive and often harmful behaviours.

The process of becoming a man and adhering to social hegemony could be described as a practice of trial and error; a perpetual cycle of aspirational endeavours and inevitable failures. Presenting masculinity as a performance and a culturally reproduced identity, this work highlights the fragility of this cycle and the difficulty men have in describing and accounting for this shared identity.

This work is not intended as a celebration or survey of modern masculinity, rather it is a meditation on dated but prevalent masculine archetypes and the disruption and questioning they are increasingly subject to. Using masculinity as an identity to deconstruct, this work poses broader questions about social hierarchies, shared narratives and increasingly polarised discourses around such subjects.