Maya Agam, LUCY | AL288-1  – Mix Media 2020
Art Project

Lucy is the common name of AL 288-1, several hundred pieces of fossilized bone representing 40 percent of the skeleton of a female of the hominid species Australopithecus afarensis, discovered in Africa in 1974.

Maya Agam chooses to follow in the footsteps of the primal Lucy, creating the goddess of the future inspired by her: a degeneration of the feminine image whose power is hidden in her supernatural-ness.  The goddess Lucy has hair on her body and head, hair that grows long and wraps her whole body – a symbol of beauty, power, and the fulfilment of her femininity. The figure questions the expectations from women in contemporary culture – the existence of the ideal vis-a-vis the need to challenge and reinvent the beauty myth. Lucy's hair is a renewed empowerment of feminine beauty, making her the idolized and worshipped goddess of tomorrow.

This project is dedicated to the primal woman in all of us.



Photographer: Rotem Lebel