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Measuring Up

    an investigative photo documentary

Exclusive 11-page photo essay from our investigative journalist team in collaboration with award-winning photojournalist Adam Krawesky. Location: Toronto, Canada Copyright Wondereur 2021.

MEET with artist Walter Segers curated by internationally acclaimed artist Barbara Astman.

W1
10
“THE KEN DOLL is based on a six-foot-tall man. It’s what they thought back then an ideal man would be, the ideal measurements, reduced to 12 inches. So it’s one-sixth of an ideal.”
15
“The Ken dolls be log to a friend. He’s owned some of them since he was a kid and now he’s collecting them, and the collection is open to me to use. He only collects ones produced between 1956 and ’68 or ’69.”
13
“Their clothing is dandy clothing. In the ’60s, guys were starting to be more open to colour, and patterns, and what they were wearing, and didn’t care about being all that masculine.”
8
“The series I’m doing now, What I Did On My Summer Vacation, is autobiographical. It’s inspired by my travels, but it’s a fantasy world I would love to see as being real.”
5
“In the morning I have my coffee and I actually go through the paper. It still comes to my door. It’s much more inspiring and interesting than reading online.”
29
“Most of it is negative news. I sympathize with people who are marginalized, but it’s about finding the perfect balance between what you absorb and what you express.”
Two
“My series started before gay marriages were legal in Ontario. Once they became legal, they were legal on paper and by law, but, still, my husband and I couldn’t walk hand-in-hand in just any neighbourhood.”
3
“There’s a thin line between wanting to belong and not wanting to belong. If you do belong, you have security. If you don’t belong, you have an individuality.”
4
“I did a photo shoot a couple of years ago where I actually mirrored myself to a Ken doll. I took a photo of myself and a photo of a Ken doll and blew them up to six feet.”
One
“THERE’S THAT PRESSURE OF WANTING TO BE KEN. WHAT GIRLS HAD FOR BARBIE, I HAD FOR MYSELF, TOO. ”