The New Garden Of Eden

Being a woman in our society is an ambiguous task. Despite the emancipation of women and the apparent equalization of their rights, fighting is more than ever rooted in their everyday life.

Religions have sought to stigmatize women. They placed women, in lost of spirituality, as the cause of all major sins.

Nowadays, the media took over and present a tempting and often manipulative woman, a modern Eve in stiletto heels and provocative negligé. A size zero on giant screens.

In the Garden of Eden, Eve seems more gifted than Adam, she si represented as a demon, a weapon of Satan to test God's creation. She is responsible for the fall of an ideal.

However, according to the studies of the historian Jovanovic,  Eve was pure. The first religious text that presents Eve, or at least its ancestor: Ninhursaag is a Sumerian text. It presents her as a sexual being but not perverse. This is a text celebrating fertility and that does not include the notion of sin.

At work, women put on the men's suits to have a semblance of power and get lost in a masculine world to prove they can be the men's equal. She has to be a man at work and a woman at home. By taking too many responsibilities they tend to lose their role,  resulting in a loss of family patterns. It is a social chaos. Nowadays, for women to accept their femininity either means to corrupt themselves or to show weakness.

In my work, I illustrate the lost balance of femininity. I confront Eve and her ancestor Ninhursaag. Ninhursaag discovers her offspring and is confronted with the unknown notion of sin and temptation. where Eve faces evil ninhursaag sees desire and discovery. It is a reminder of the purity of women and the gift that is fertility. Being a woman should not what the media makes it to be.