When a Box is a Jar
All art comes from somewhere. Inspired by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood of the mid 1800s (Dante Gabriel Rossetti in particular), I have been taking photos with similar romantic themes. In my research I learned about the inherent biases in media and art. For example, there is a fundamental misunderstanding of who Pandora is in her own story. She has been forced to take the blame for opening the box (which in the original telling is actually a jar) and unleashing all the evils into the world of man. But we so easily forget that she was made by Zeus and the Olympian Gods as revenge on Man.
“Medusa wasn’t always a monster, Helen of Troy wasn’t always an adulterer, Pandora wasn’t ever a villain.” (Haynes, 2020).
This work, therefore, is me reinterpreting these stories so we can see how our stories have affected our perception of these women.
These photos are a representation of Pandora’s creation.
In the myth, Zeus creates Pandora as a revenge on the race of man because of the actions of the titan Prometheus. Prometheus tricked the Olympian Gods by hiding a better cut of meat under a layer of fat, ensuring that mankind would be properly fed. He then stole fire for us from the Olympians to improve our lives.
Zeus, being a petty god, chains Prometheus to a rock and cuts his stomach so that an eagle can eat his liver everyday. He then charges Hephaestus with creating the first woman, Pandora. The gods all have a hand in her creation, making her the most beautiful, and in some versions, the most curious. He then gives her a jar and sends her to Prometheus’s brother Epimetheus. Epimetheus ignores the warning of his brother and welcomes her and her jar as a gift from Zeus. In some versions, he convinces her to open the jar, in others he is the one who opens it, in all the only thing that does not escape is hope.
These photos show us Pandora being created, Pandora realizing that she was made as a tool for petty revenge, and then her taking the mantle that we know her to have.
These photos depict Persephone and her mother Demeter.
In the myths, Hades leaves the Underworld and sees Persephone. Her beauty, which these myths focus on a lot, causes him to fall in love with her instantly. He tells his brother Zeus and the two of them concoct a plan to kidnap her and marry her to Hades. Demeter begins to look for her daughter, cursing some nymphs when they are not able to help her. Eventually she realizes that Persephone is in the Underworld and begs Zeus to return her because she is not dead yet. Before leaving she eats the seeds of a pomegranate which, in these myths, causes her to return to her captor for four months of the year. The distress that this causes Demeter is what leads to winter, as Demeter is the goddess of agriculture.
These images represent Persephone returning to Demeter one year, her expression quiet and reserved to show the trauma that she faces by being trapped in the Underworld.
The following photos are a representation of Helen of Troy.
Helen of Troy is another misunderstood character from the ancient Greek myths. In the widely accepted version of her story, she is seduced by Paris of Troy. She then leaves Sparta to be with him and thus the Trojan War begins. Unsurprisingly, this could not be further from the truth of her story. Instead, at a contest of beauty between Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite takes place and Paris is picked to be the judge by Zeus. They each offer him a bribe to be chosen as victor, and Aphrodite offers him Helen. He then seduces (takes) her to Troy which results in the Trojan War, incidentally not the first war caused by someone kidnapping Helen. In some versions, Helen is not even the one who goes to Troy, but instead a copy of her created by the gods to take her place while she is taken to Egypt where she can be safe. In these versions, she never commits adultery on her husband and therefore remains honorable in the perspective of the people who wrote her myth.
These photos are of Helen realizing what has taken place, as a daughter of Zeus she is also quite cunning. In the play written by Euripides, she alone raises to her own defense and offers an argument that stops her execution.
References
Haynes, N., 2020. Pandora's jar: Women in Greek Myths, New York: Harper, an imprint of Harper Collins Publishers.