The Labyrinth of Domesticity: The New Woman and the Questioning of Gender in Felka's Photographs

This article draws on the postdoctoral research I undertook on the career of the photographer Felka (Buenos Aires, 1929), a pseudonym used by Ilse Fuskova. She embodies the model of Nueva Mujer (New Woman) who uses her independence to stroll about Buenos Aires in the 1950s with a camera in her hands. Her position outside the art system gives her a framework of freedom when photographing the cracks of the modernizing process, as well as when portraying women who participate within the cultural and artistic field. Her visual register is essential for the construction of new subjectivities and for the subversion of assigned roles. Felka provides us with an insightful material to reflect on the New Woman's ways of creating and wandering about.