photo:
Courtesy of Dafna Steinberg
When life hands you lemons, make lemonade. When Tinder hands you pervert fuckboys, make art.
That's what Washington, DC-based artist Dafna Steinberg did. After a number of misogynistic encounters on Tinder, Steinberg turned the gross messages she received into collages that hold a lens up to romance and the art of dating.
Her series, "I'm Willing to Lie About How We Met," was recently featured in a three-artist exhibit in DC called #thisiswhyimsingle.
"I started using Tinder about two years ago, and I kept getting all these messages that were super inappropriate," Steinberg told Revelist in an email.
photo:
Courtesy of Dafna Steinberg
"Being the kind of snarky person that I am, I also started responding to them."
photo:
Courtesy of Dafna Steinberg
"I started taking screen shots and posting them to my Instagram feed, which eventually led to me deciding to incorporate them in collages."
photo:
Courtesy of Dafna Steinberg
"A reaction [to the exhibit] I seem to get a lot is one where people laugh hysterically and then tell me they feel kind of sad."
photo:
Courtesy of Dafna Steinberg
"I think seeing all the pieces together can be a little overwhelming, because (and this is partly the point of the work) it shows how frequently this actually happens."
photo:
Courtesy of Dafna Steinberg
"Men who see the work have reached out to me to apologize for the behavior of other men, or have found it difficult to believe that this happens so often."
photo:
Courtesy of Dafna Steinberg
"I also get asked why men send me these messages, which I find problematic because that's assuming that I was instigating the conversations."
photo:
Courtesy of Dafna Steinberg
"The majority of the messages I used were unsolicited initial messages. All I did was match with the person."
photo:
Courtesy of Dafna Steinberg
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