Visual rhetoric in a post-feminist era.

The use of selfies on the internet as an answer to the exploitation, sexualisation en objectification of the female body in today's consumer society manifests itself as a new tendency within (post-)feminism. This tendency is situated mainly on the internet and floods social media and blogs with snapshots of self aware teenagers in provocative poses and/or with eccentric looks. However, there is a thin line between the random selfie and the selfie as an activist tool for a feminist discourse, which has caused a lot of criticism and rejection from within the movement itself. Artists such as Katie Cercone, Amalia Ulman, Juno Calypso and Ann Hirsh make the distinction between cheap selfies and the intentional politicized self-recording in an artistic oeuvre.

During the retrospective on Agnes Varda in Cinematek Brussels, Offoff introduces Varda's obscure transatlantic counterpart: Chick Strand, along with Bruce Baille co-founder of the legendary Canyon Cinema, but above all,  film maker. She was a pioneer in mixing experimental film with documentary cinema and each time she managed to confirm the flexibility of the human mind. 

We present an overview of her oeuvre, both the etnographic experiments and the more lyrical works. Ranging from her early films, such as Anselmo, a Mexican child she repeatedly portrayed, to Soft Fiction, recently declared the peak of cinema from the late 70's by Tate. Here it is the feminine sensuality that is confirmed in its obstinance.