Selected as Book of the Week by Christian Michael Filardo

In Wannabe, Spanish photographer Elisa Gonzalez Miralles (born 1972) points her lens at the fetishized doll-like female so pervasive in Japanese culture.

Exploring the interplay between objectification and performativity, she questions societal standards of self-projection?both in Japan and elsewhere.

Wannabe is a photographic project about doll-like girls in Japanese culture —about the objectification of these women to serve societal customs that lead to android-like behaviours. It illustrates how people who grow up in a given culture unconsciously feel the need to follow a predetermined role.

With this work, González Miralles aims to question how societal standards —not only in Japan, but elsewhere— constrain human behaviour and the development of identity. Questions that affect us all, especially considering the obsession with self-projection in today’s society.