"Not all princesses are waiting to be saved."
-Princess Sophia Solar Michalski
The Project:
ThePrincessProject.com is an interdisciplinary conceptual art project
conceived and spearheaded by Kathleen Bitetti. The Project examines gender
roles, gender assignment, fairy tales, Royalty & class structures, mass
culture, identity, race & ethnicity, the "commoditification &
branding" of individuals, and gender issues by utilizing a vast array
of mediums including: new media and digital image making, sculpture, performance,
installation, photography, video, and the internet.
The ideal audiences for ThePrincessProject.com are, but are not limited
to: the general public, the "art community", activists, university
populations, young girls, teenage girls and boys, and women and men of all
ages and backgrounds. These audiences have been and/or will be reached via
the Internet, with performances/ appearances, through exhibitions in public
spaces, art spaces and universities, and by community based artist residencies.
ThePrincessProject.com is designed to allow Bitetti to invite guest artists
to work with her on specific aspects of the Project. ThePrincessProject.com
is also designed not only to promote itself, but to also to promote the
individual art careers and the work of the guest artists. Some of the guest
artists have been Melody Fortier/Tangerine Boutique, Joanne Kaliontzis,
Cynthia von Buhler, and Laura Wulf. The project is dedicated to the memory
of Bitetti's maternal grandmother Mary. Her Royal Highness Princess Sophia
Solar Michalski is graciously acting as the project's muse.
The Artist:
Kathleen Bitetti has been working as a curator/arts professional and an art activist in the Boston area since
1989. For over the last twenty years she has created conceptually based
sociopolitical objects and installations that deconstruct the American dream,
fairy tales, gender roles/gender assignment, the fragility of family dynamics,
and domestic violence. Hand stenciled text/language, mundane domestic objects,
and the color white are very prominent features in Bitetti's work.
www.KathleenBitetti.com
The Princess:
Her Royal Highness Princess Sophia Solar Michalski, who is of Polish
Royal decent and Italian Noble decent, is presently pursuing a degree in
art history at an undisclosed university in the greater Boston area. Among
her many interests are women's issues, improving the status of women, contemporary
art, fashion (vintage clothing and emerging/contemporary designers), protecting
the environment, and working towards world peace. She is an avid reader
and is also very interested in encouraging literacy and education- especially
for girls and women. She is an avid collector of contemporary art and is
also a collector of dragonflies, dragonfly imagery, and dragonfly folklore.
www.princesssophia.com
2002 Interview with Princess Sophia by Jasmine Ford
2003 Interview with Princess Sophia by Artspace curator Denise Markonish
Read the Improbable Containment Essay for Bitetti's Containment solo exhibitions (pdf)