ICP Teen Academy
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Anju Myrrol
Dress-Up Gender
Dress-Up Gender is focused on the performative materialization of complex gender identity through gender stereotypes. How do stereotypes shape identity, and how can their breakdown or contradiction reveal the complexities of those identities? Can these representations be only surface-level, like the clothes in the photographs? When looking at this project, consider how fashion and clothing play a role in expressing a person’s inner experiences with their own identity. Through these photographs, Anju grapples with their own complex gender identity, how that manifests in their gender expression, and how they can test the limits of their identity through almost comical representations of gender. Taking inspiration from artists such as Laurence Philomène and Cindy Sherman, in these photographs, Anju hopes to combine satire and a thoughtful examination of their experiences with gender.
Anju Myrrol is an analog and digital photographer born in New York City and works primarily in their neighborhood of Harlem. They are a student at Hunter College High School, where they photograph for two newspapers. Anju has received a photographic education from the Expanding the Walls program at the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Teen Academy Imagemakers program at the International Center of Photography. They were a part of the Studio Museum in Harlem’s first online exhibition, Hearts in Isolation, and won a Gold Key for poetry in the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. Their work has branched into photography of their family in India and Jamaica along with an examination of their own belonging in Harlem. They have also explored their own gender and racial identities through various photographic projects. Their photography is inspired by a close studying of people they surround themselves with along with the rhythm of their neighborhood and city. Anju’s work is influenced by photographers like Catherine Opie, LaToya Ruby Frazier, and Deana Lawson.
@anjumyrrol
www.anjumyrrol.com
Dress-Up Gender is focused on the performative materialization of complex gender identity through gender stereotypes. How do stereotypes shape identity, and how can their breakdown or contradiction reveal the complexities of those identities? Can these representations be only surface-level, like the clothes in the photographs? When looking at this project, consider how fashion and clothing play a role in expressing a person’s inner experiences with their own identity. Through these photographs, Anju grapples with their own complex gender identity, how that manifests in their gender expression, and how they can test the limits of their identity through almost comical representations of gender. Taking inspiration from artists such as Laurence Philomène and Cindy Sherman, in these photographs, Anju hopes to combine satire and a thoughtful examination of their experiences with gender.
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Anju Myrrol is an analog and digital photographer born in New York City and works primarily in their neighborhood of Harlem. They are a student at Hunter College High School, where they photograph for two newspapers. Anju has received a photographic education from the Expanding the Walls program at the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Teen Academy Imagemakers program at the International Center of Photography. They were a part of the Studio Museum in Harlem’s first online exhibition, Hearts in Isolation, and won a Gold Key for poetry in the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. Their work has branched into photography of their family in India and Jamaica along with an examination of their own belonging in Harlem. They have also explored their own gender and racial identities through various photographic projects. Their photography is inspired by a close studying of people they surround themselves with along with the rhythm of their neighborhood and city. Anju’s work is influenced by photographers like Catherine Opie, LaToya Ruby Frazier, and Deana Lawson.
@anjumyrrol
www.anjumyrrol.com