Artist/Scholar duo SAMANIA (Samira Mahboub + Ania Catherine) release PHASE: A response to those who tell queer women "It's just a phase."

Artist/Scholar duo SAMANIA (Samira Mahboub + Ania Catherine) release PHASE: A response to those who tell queer women "It's just a phase."

LOS ANGELES, April 14, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- SAMANIA, based on their experience as a couple and hearing comments such as "I don't get it, I'm just worried about you, It's just a phase" decided to call-out less visible and seemingly innocent discourses around romantic love between women with their new piece.

https://photos.prnewswire.com/prnvar/20160414/355543

PHASE has two prongs: a SAMANIA film strikingly shot/edited by LA-based creative Delaram Pourabdi and a poem by Ania Catherine. "It's just a phase." Find a woman who hasn't heard these words regarding her attraction to or relationship with another woman. PHASE is a response. There has been a recent and drastic increase in the visibility of female-female relationships throughout media. However, subtle and implicit forms of delegitimation and ridiculization of relationships between women are omnipresent. As French intellectual Michel Foucault has written, power's "success is proportional to its ability to hide its own mechanisms"; PHASE highlights the less visible (and therefore underestimated) yet still powerful forms of heterosexism. Increased media presence should not be conflated with sexual equality.

#NOTAPHASE
WATCH: https://vimeo.com/SAMANIA/PHASE

"PHASE" [poem excerpt]

phase is your film, of which we wanted no part
what is seen through this frame is not reality
it is a view
a view that won't define or lasso our experience
this gaze is not required
this gaze may seem loving
this gaze deceives you
what is a phase, is this gaze
not our experience
we politely exit
in our absence, your frame becomes visible
see you in the future

Who is SAMANIA?
SAMANIA is an artist/scholar duo composed of Samira Mahboub and Ania Catherine. Samira (Germany) and Ania (USA) met in 2013 while pursuing master's degrees at the London School of Economics Gender Institute. In 2014, they collaborated on their first film, cloth, which was featured in the International Museum of Women's exhibition "Imagining Equality" and in the Huffington Post's "5 Amazing Ways Women and Girls are Breaking Gender Stereotypes Worldwide". Together they combine their creative work (performance, fashion, art) and academic interests (gender, coloniality, sexuality) to translate sociopolitical subjects into a digestible visual form. In addition, Samira works in New York as a model represented by Wilhelmina, and Ania in Los Angeles as an artist and choreographer.

+ LINKS:
www.bysamania.com/phase
SAMANIA: www.bysamania.com @bysamania
Samira Mahboub: @samiramahboub
Ania Catherine: www.aniacatherine.com @aniacatherine
Delaram Pourabdi: www.iamdelaram.com @iamdelaram
Inquiries: contact@bysamania.com

https://photos.prnewswire.com/prnvar/20160414/355544

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160414/355543
Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160414/355544



SOURCE SAMANIA

Photo:https://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160414/355543
http://photoarchive.ap.org/
Photo:https://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160414/355544
http://photoarchive.ap.org/
Photo:https://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160414/355543
http://photoarchive.ap.org/
Photo:https://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160414/355544
http://photoarchive.ap.org/
SAMANIA

Web Site: http://www.bysamania.com


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