'Cherish: cupcake trinket box' in Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award 2011

Last January, the annual Toy Fair at New York’s Javits Centre displayed over 100,000 new toys. At least 75,000 of these were pink. The pink toys collected for my current series of photographs entitled Cherish were created as accessories to children’s fantasies and imaginative play, dress-ups and parties. Their role extends beyond pure ornament and artifice to become a powerful accoutrement to the enchanting, transitory, impressionable childhood world. Chosen for their symbolic references to femininity, cuteness and sweetness, these talismanic objects are a celebration of the new pink-and-pretty girlie-girl culture; a culture that purports to encourage young girls to positively define themselves as feminine. However, as in all the best fairy tales, the pink toys in Cherish are also cautionary. As a monochromatic, one dimensional, and typecast representation of femininity their potential impact is troubling.