Zoetrope Tropes was presented at the Emily Carr Grad show in July 2024. Zoetrope Tropes uses the optical toy, a device once used to teach children reasoning skills, to critique portrayals of mothers in popular cartoons. This installation asks, where do we get our ideas of motherhood from? Once viewers figure out the zoetrope, they find recognizable characters performing domestic tasks repeatedly. The cartoon caregiver’s labour is activated through the viewer spinning the device. This might even suggest that the person who engages the characters in this labour is implicated in perpetuating these stereotypes of motherhood, just as many of us are as consumers, and therefore supporters, of these popular shows.
Scroll down to see what it looks like to spin the zoetropes.
If you would like to learn more about my thesis project you can find it on my MFA blog, linked below (beside the instagram logo).
