Social influences & Barbie

This semester I am looking into social influences as a starting point. This started by looking into cultures, religions, celebrities, TV and film, but mostly at magazines and the messages they are sending out on lifestyle and image. Thinking about how this might effect our lifestyle choices,  behaviour, the way we look/dress and our perception of what is 'normal'.

 One of my first ideas of combining these thoughts into one piece was a Barbie doll. In that it is one that is well recognised world wide ( a celebrity or social idol if you like) it has also recently been publicly slated for the shape of its body and what message of this could be setting for young children.

After seeing  Peihang Huang's oil paintings (see below) of dolls this inspired me to take some of my own photos as a starting point for some further work.