Photographer: Dina Goldstein

Dina Goldstein is a canadian visual artist based in Vancouver. She has a background in documentary photography and specialises in pop Surrealism and photography which highlights the human condition. This series of work is is one of her most well know and the final product was produced in 2009. Fallen Princesses focuses on bringing disney princesses into real life humanised situations. The artist conceptualises each of the disney princesses into situations she believe they would live out in the real world. The photos also raise the issue of how disney sugar coats all of these princesses to have their happily ever after and doesn't raise any real issues on how women in the real world live. Some of the concepts involved include, cancer, obesity, broken dreams, the breakdown of indigenous cultures and environmental issues.

I really like this series of work as i feel it challenges how we see these fairytale stories as ideal, especially as children. After growing up looking at these stories and somewhat believing them we later realise that life doesn't evolve with a happily ever after and in real life we do have to suffer and sacrifice as well as enjoy ourselves.
An example of this is .Not-so-little Red Riding Hood' which focuses on the fairytale where little red riding hood takes a basket of food to her grandma via the forest. In this depiction of the story Red Riding Hoods basket is full of unhealthy fast food. She is also show to be what society would label obese. I feel this photo is trying to show the problems that face children and young women in todays world where a lot of food on the shelves is processed and therefore contains chemicals and ingredients which harm our bodies.
Another example of a work i like is 'Repunzel' which focuses on the confidence issues women going through treatment of cancer face. In the traditional story Repunzel is locket in a tower for most of her childhood and is then rescued by a prince who she lets her heir down to.

Another thing i think is quite clever in this work is the way the Artist has kept the bright colouring and the costumes the traditional disney princesses wear. I feel this make the work easier to understand and recognise which will bring in viewers to look deeper into the concepts behind these images as they're different to those we know and love as children.