Claudia Chagoya

Inocencia Alterada (Altered Innocence) invites viewers to reflect on how society conceives sexualized behaviors on girls. Sexualization occurs when a person is perceived as an object for pleasure, and sexual characteristics are attributed to them disregarding any other human quality or personality trait. This problem manifests in girls increasingly at younger ages, and because this behavior is regarded as “cute”, sexualization tends to be ignored or unnoticed. Inocencia Alterada was developed in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where I researched how this issue presented itself on girls between 10 and 12 years old. 193 girls from different backgrounds were surveyed for this project, and through my research I found that the pressure to fit into narrow stereotypes was reinforced by the media, society, and their peers. 

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The series consists of 30 sculptures and 193 high relief portraits made of cast recycled cotton paper.   The tiny portraits represent the girls surveyed, and have a rendering of the drawings of the children responding to the question: How they would like to be? 

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