Using the fictitious society of Gilead from Margaret Atwood’s novel, A Handmaid’s Tale, as its foundation, A Gift Shop in Gilead is an investigation into creating and commodifying a visual narrative of an oppressive theocracy into kitsch souvenirs and how this process simultaneously reinforces cultural standards to those it oppresses while legitimizing, normalizing, and celebrating this ideology to tourists. This project aims to show the influence of art as both visual rhetoric and commodity as it pertains to those who produce it, as well as the implications for those who consume it.
