Kate Durbin Discusses 'Girls Online' Tumblr Project

Alicia Eler has posted part one of a two-part interview with poet and artist Kate Durbin in the online magazine Hyperallergic. Their conversation focuses on Durbin’s Tumblr project “Girls, Online,” a collection of anonymous posts from teenage girls featured on the Bright Stupid Confetti website. We appreciate Durbin's astute understanding of Tumblr aesthetics as well as her sensitivity to the concerns and challenges of teenage girls:

Initially I was drawn to Tumblr because of the unique potentials of the interface — I see it as evolving art and culture in important ways. That teenagers are the primary users, that they are hijacking symbols from pop culture and disrupting their meaning, is really interesting. These teens are at the forefront of trend-making, but also trend-warping — effectively and publicly revealing the “man behind the curtain"

“Girls, Online” is an extension of an earlier Tumblr project, “Women as Objects,”  which Eler describes as "a tongue-in-cheek collection of images that plays on the idea of women’s bodies as objects to possess, view, and consume." Eler goes on to wonder if  Durbin’s work is "feminist, post-feminist, or something else all together?"

Check out the interview on Hyperallergic and decide for yourself.