This essay examines Instagrams as platforms for displaying and promoting art, this by looking at two photo artists, Arvida Byström and Cindy Sherman who are active on Instagram to varying degrees. The essay goes through how their feed is structured and how they shape their feed to reflect their identity as artists. A formal and a semiotic analysis is done on their feeds and selected images from their feeds. The result of the study shows that Arvida Byström uses here instagram to promote her art while Cindy Sherman focus more on her everyday life and shows a more casual approach to Instagram.

This academic paper examines the menstrual art that is seen as provocative in the contemporary art debate in Sweden. The paper problematizes menstrual art as a concept. Moreover, it critically examines how the concept of menstrual art has been received by politicians, art theorists and journalists. The ideas and artistic expressions in menstrual art have been analyzed using Kristeva’s psychoanalytic theory on abjection and Wasshedes verbalized form abjectification. As well as how the distinction between purity and dirt can be examined by using the ideas found in menstrual art. How do artists challenge prevailing societal structures and norms by creating menstrual art? Which ideas does the concept of menstrual art include? How did the concept of menstrual art become a controversial word in the contemporary debate in Sweden?

Undersökningens syfte är att med hjälp av semiotiska och receptionsestetiska verktyg undersöka hurArvida Byström i Inflated Fiction (2018) ifrågasätter den manliga blicken och föreställningar om femininitet. Mot en blickteoretisk bakgrund har begrepp som maskeraden och subversiv affirmationtillämpats för att visa hur objektifierande bildkonventioner används för att konkretisera ideologiska fenomen. Analysen uppmärksammar hur intertextuell opposition, retorisk integrering, retorisk likhet ochskriftliga element används för att bekräfta, returnera och störa. Den manliga blicken i synnerhet och denpatriarkala ideologin i allmänhet. Avslutningsvis föreslås begreppet subversiva affirmationer, snarare än maskeraden, för att beskrivaByströms konstnärliga strategi. Trots begreppets begränsningar menar jag att det mer effektivt betonarhur ideologiska fenomen kan konkretiseras genom mimesis. Maskeraden som begrepp riskerar osynliggöra andra sociala grupper och reproducera föreställningar om relationen mellan biologiskt könoch socialt genus. Subversiva affirmationer blir därför mer lämpligt med tanke på det queer-feministiskasammanhang Byström rör sig inom

The aim of this work is the qualitative analysis of the new wave of female gaze photographers with a comparison of the female gaze pioneers. For this purpose, there were used photographs by Arvida Bystr​öm​, Petra Collins, Harley Weir, and Cindy Sherman, Nan Goldin, Corinne Day, which were published in fashion magazines such as ​Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, i-D, Dazed, and ​Vice​. The theoretical part examined how female identity has been shaped by western culture and dominant ideology, and how patriarchy paradigm has influenced the visual representation of women in art, pop culture, and advertisement. It is shown through key feminist concepts including Simone De Beauvoir, Betty Friedan, Judith Butler, John Berger, Laura Mulvey, theory of young girl, gagafeminism, and xenofeminism. The second part of the thesis is dedicated to social semiotics analysis of each photograph and the results of this research, which show changes of topics in the female gaze content and the shift to social media-related topics and the virtual representation of women. The work could enrich further research in the field of feminist aesthetics, fashion journalism, photography, advertisement, and social media.