Vieilles filles

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THE photographic work “VIEILLES filles”, SEEKS to shed light on the diverse experiences of singlehood among women and those who identify as such.

Who is today’s “vieille fille”? Can this person be something other than an outdated caricature? Can being single be a deliberate stance, a quest for autonomy, or a form of freedom fully embraced?

THE PROJECT WAS EXHIBITED IN DECEMBER 2024 AT LA VALLEE (BRUSSELS, BELGIUM).

winner of the 2024 agnes varda jury prize.

Deciding to stop waiting for love isn’t just about sparing yourself the violence of the Tinder supermarket, the first dates where you always end up asking, “So, what kind of music do you like?” to fill a conversation that’s going nowhere, or the mediocre nights that required drinking a lot of bad wine to muster up the courage. It’s not just about avoiding the attempts at subtly deciphering behaviors that are rarely subtle, the disappointments when you liked the other person more than they liked you, or the awkwardness and discomfort when it was the other way around. (…) It’s about the men we choose, consciously or not, because they feed our neuroses. To stop waiting for love is, above all, to dispossess oneself. To reclaim ownership of your body, your mind, your time.

The spinster is guilty of laziness, of not participating in the “hot girl market.”

It is her refusal, or her real or supposed inability, to engage with the company of men and their value system. That is the original sin, the underlying cause, the root of the evil attributed to spinsters.

Escaping all the constraints experienced by my peers, the spinster is presumed to have infinite and endlessly expandable time and to always be available since she faces none of the unpredictabilities of maternal or marital life. She is also expected to always be in good shape and to lead a life of uninterrupted leisure because, after all, what else could she possibly do with all this time and no one depending on her, other than enjoy my freedom?

The spinster, by having neither a partner nor a family to nurture, breaks the lineage. She severs the chain, destined to become a dead branch on the family tree.