Photos taken by Bryan Kirkwood
Bryan is a Phoenixville based photographer, videographer, & adventurer.
He shoots weddings, engagements, events, real estate, aerials, commercials, and is a licensed drone pilot.
Contact him if you would like to work with him or order a custom print.
The Amazing Disappearing Woman or, The Bride Strippped Bare by her Bachelors, Even
Lee Pohlsander
There's a Lovely French phrase - "la femme fondue." the melting, or dissolving, women.
Often in a heteronormative family, especially a heteroparental family, a woman's needs are expected to blur into the lives of her partner and her children. Magically, incrementally, burdened by housework, parenting, being a supportive partner, and her own job, pieces of the woman disappear as she loses a hobby, loses time to relax, loses a minute of self-care. Until, amazingly, she dissipates, the woman disappears entirely.
Strung Out
Lauren Ariel
This show has unearthed things in me I fought for a very long time to shove down. I am someone who has a chronic need to be liked, to seek validation in others at a great detriment to my own well-being. But contributing to this show has forced me to take a long, hard look in the mirror at myself.
How long have I denied myself the right to be angry, to be in pain? How long have I suffocated the child inside of me that is screaming? How much longer still will I allow myself to use the patriarchy as an excuse to stay quiet, stay demure, stay perfectly packaged and likeable?
And why the fuck am I so scared of this show?
It took me down until the night before to figure it out. Making art about things makes them real. Makes them live outside of you.
It would be too simple to say that F**k the Patriarchy is my politic heart making a statement in solidarity with my fellow artists. This show has meant acknowledging the vast wealth of inequality, hate, and violence that has colored my life for the past 26 years. Has meant reckoning and coming to terms with the very real and very suffocating pain of living this life born as a woman. This show is an altar to all the past versions of me lost somewhere in time, that I hope to one day save. Fuck the need to be loved.
Fuck the need to be perfect. Fuck the false humility I try to force myself to perform so that nobody dare see me try to take up space.
This show is for me. I’m not sorry about it.
Wood
Anthony Nowack
“And who are you?” she sternly spoke to the one beneath the smoke.
“Why I’m fire” he replied
“and I love your solitude… I love your pride.”
Well then fire, make your body cold, I’m gonna give you mine to hold.”
Saying this, she climbed inside, to be his one, to be his only bride.
And deep into his fiery heart, he took the dust of Joan of Arc, and high above all these wedding guests, he hung the ashes of her lovely wedding dress.
It was deep into his firey heart, he took the dust of Joan of Arc, and then she clearly understood. If he was fire… oh … she must be wood.
I saw her wince, I saw her cry. I saw the glory in her eye. Myself, I long for Love and light, but must it be so cruel? Must it be so Bright?
“Joan of Arc” - Leonard Cohen
Go behind the scenes of F**k the Patriarchy with Anno Artem Co-Owner & COO, Danielle Kangas.
In a raw and personal interview, Danielle shares what it felt like to open a show this bold, the inspiration behind the work, and how vulnerability, resistance, and community came together to create something unforgettable.
From last-minute cake baking to cutting the first piece of a wedding dress, this is a glimpse into the soul of the exhibition.
Read the full interview
Self Image
