Jacinta

Image from “Beauty calibrator” project by Jacinta

Biography

Jacinta is a musician and photographer. She was born in 1998 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. After studying photography for four years at UNSAM and music at the Alberto Ginastera Conservatory, she moved to France to continue her studies in jazz vocals at the Conservatoire de Lyon. Currently in her second year of a master’s degree at ENSP, she focuses on collage and photomontage to create a dialogue between her own images and those from archives. Her current research explores the representation of women in image history and the feminist reexamination of those visual narratives.

The project

“Beauty calibrator” is an ongoing project that activates archives of aesthetic treatments from the early 20th century, particularly from the creation of an ideal Hollywood make-up designed by Max Factor, also inventor of the Beauty Calibrator machine, a metal device designed to precisely measure the proportions of the female face in order to correct its “imperfections”. In the images I collect, women are subjected to devices that measure and shape their faces to conform to an ideal. Certain instruments, such as this machine or the so-called therapeutic masks, which are sometimes electric or radioactive, are reminiscent of torture devices straight out of a science-fiction film.

This quest for a perfect face is not disappearing, it's evolving. Today, the injunction to stay young forever is imposed through more subtle forms: non-invasive beauty treatments, creams, “rejuvenating” masks, digital filters, online tutorials. These practices, widely disseminated on social networks, make methods for getting closer to an ever-imposed ideal accessible to all.

Although these modern devices no longer have the appearance of oppressive machines, the aesthetic pressure remains strong, often masked by playful or trivialized forms. Who imposes this ideal? How can we re-read the history of the female canon to reveal its absurdity? Hollywood screens were pioneers in disseminating unattainable standards, now translated into filters and injections.

Image from “Beauty calibrator” project by Jacinta

Image from “Beauty calibrator” project by Jacinta

To activate this archive, I created a series of self-portraits and photomontages, blending these historical images with my own. This work in progress aims to build a contemporary archive that echoes these early cinematic ideals, while questioning current injunctions. These norms, though evolving, remain shaped by a male gaze and are far removed from a feminist visual imaginary.