Whether via tall trees or wide shots of fields, wilderness abounds in local photographer Phillipa James' excellent new exhibition Girlhood, which is on through this Saturday (28th January) at the North Wall Arts Centre. Shot in cool tones and natural light, the exhibit consists of at least two dozen photos - some the size of large bedroom posters, others postcards. They are almost entirely images of teenage girls - a couple of boys appear peripherally in chummy group shots. We see the subjects at ease: playing in a sporting ground or hanging out in suburbia, with its mazes of tall greige fencing. The photos feel both candid and striking, with the girls sporting a recognizably teenage aesthetic - casual yet curated. Activewear mixed with stacks of bracelets and rows of rings, scabby nail varnish and NYX lip gloss.
James’ work here recalls the dreamy female gazes of photographers like Petra Collins and Ashley Armitage, although intentionally more grounded and unposed. In Girlhood, the camera seems to simply bear witness rather than glamourise or caution. Her strategy pays off: the unpoised vulnerability and freedom become the collection's chief strength.
The photos are mirrored by a wall of scribbled thoughts from teenagers who participated in workshopping sessions for the exhibit, answering prompts on teenage life. While this could’ve come off as twee or cloying, it’s anything but - it informs and enriches the work immensely.
In the collection's most striking photo, three girls lie on their discarded hoodies in the grass, resting their heads on each other’s laps. One girl has placed two Haribo hearts over another’s closed eyes, while another reads a ballpoint message scrawled on the Haribo girl’s palm. It feels like such a serene and unposed moment, managing to underline one of the key themes of the collection: the vitality of female friendship and how formative it can be in adolescence, like trees growing with interconnected roots.
The resonance of this is likely to be felt by women, regardless of generation. I remember the first time I felt like being a teenage girl could actually be cool was reading the online feminist magazine, Rookie. This was founded in 2011 by then-15-year high school student Tavi Gevinson, and grew over the next seven years into a gorgeous, hard-hitting mosaic portrait of the highs and lows of teenage girlhood. Rookie didn’t flinch away from discussing things like sexism, trauma, bullying, abusive parents, and sexuality, but it also had a lot of fun pop culture articles fashion ideas, crafting tips and fun escapades.
In her artist’s statement - projected onto a painted white square of a wall otherwise coloured the lightest, softest shade of pink - James mentioned that the project started as a way to examine how mobile phones and social media were shaping her daughter’s generation and their view of the world. What she discovered though, was that the pressures of social media were not at the top of girls' lists of teenage woes. While at times demanding, social media was mostly seen as a source of connection and a way to bear witness - to cast one’s gaze outward instead of in - which seems like a crucial outlet to have as a teenager. Instead, most comments echoed concerns of James’ own adolescence: mentioning scrutiny, harassment and patronization.
One comment reads: “Dealing with the trauma of sexual harassment alone - if my parents knew, I’d have lost my freedom to go out.” Another: “Everyone making fun of the things you like.”
Read together, the various messages serve as a powerful reminder that the victim blaming of sexual harassment disempowers its victim in two ways - first, by implying that others’ reactions to their bodies are their fault and responsibility to prevent. And secondly, the patronising and problematic assumption that teenage girls have no sexual identity of their own, and any desire to be seen as attractive is just being projected onto them.
What set Rookie apart from other teen mags was it understood a fundamental truth of adolescence: you always feel like you’re as old as you’re ever going to be. In some ways, I feel younger now at 24 than I did at 16 because I can look back and see how young I was then. When you’re a teenager, everything is hyper-present, it really is your first rodeo, and you can smell condescension from a mile off.
There’s so much shame involved in being a teenage girl, whose interests and obsessions are regularly looked on with disdain from virtually every other part of society, whose feelings are easy to dismiss as teenage histrionics, whose budding sexuality is tangled up in others’ sexualization. I remember this impossible push-pull between feeling like sexualization is a gateway into womanhood, and knowing femininity is seen as lesser, as weak, as participation in your own objectification. There’s always been this precedent - shifting now, thankfully - that books and films and shows with a male lead are for everyone, and shows with a female lead are for girls.
Toxic masculinity equates femininity (and more broadly, vulnerability,) with weakness, and hails macho culture as the height of respectability. This is a problem for both girls and boys. The rise (and hopefully, current fall) of former boxer and social media influencer Andrew Tate - whose messages, aimed primarily at teenage boys are deeply misogynistic and violent - is an ongoing issue.
Culturally, in a lot of the girl power of the early 2000s, empowered female characters had to be ‘one of the boys’ - stripped of any vulnerabilities whatsoever or uniquely feminine traits in order to let the audience know they could be taken seriously.
This ‘not like other girls’ syndrome continued in the 2010s, we had Gillian Flynn’s novel Gone Girl encapsulation of trope in the main character’s blistering ‘Cool Girl’ monologue (“...because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want…”)
It was there in the way Jennifer Lawrence was stereotyped in every interview as more ‘real’ than other celebrities- She can hang with the boys! She hates shopping! She eats fast food! - while still being a blonde, toned Hollywood actress.
Nowadays we have the TikTok trend of videos poking fun at the so-called ‘Pick Me’ girl who constructs her personality around her male friends' likes and dislikes and expresses disdain for traditionally feminine things.
It’s a more modern kind of malleability than that expected of the passive, kittenish ‘girls’ (read: grown women) of the 50s and 60s, but it’s still diminishing, and still represents a lose-lose system which demeans women for not pandering to the male gaze and demeans them if they do.
But movingly, the girls involved in this exhibit seem keenly aware of these paradoxes and injustices and determined to build authentically joyous lives for themselves.
A lot of teenagehood feels like waiting…waiting for adulthood, waiting for freedom, waiting to be taken seriously. This brilliant, stirring exhibit captures those feelings as well as the excitement kinship and joy of that time, told through McDonald’s trips and post-school bedroom hangouts. I’d recommend it to anyone.