Daisy
Participatory Portrait
She was
dramatic
Daisy has been called dramatic, attention-seeking and an “angry feminist” since she was about ten. At 18, she’s learning not to make herself quieter, but to become more proudly herself.
Daisy was about ten when she started being described as the “insufferable, angry feminist”: making a fuss, being dramatic, attention seeking.
At 18, she gave a talk to 150 teenage boys about feminism and how men can be feminists too. Afterwards, a man in a position of authority stepped in to “elaborate” on her message, which Daisy felt completely misrepresented what she had said. When she expressed her anger about it to a friend, a boy overheard and told her to “calm down”.
Another boy once voted Daisy “most likely to die a virgin”. Later, when she got a boyfriend, he slut-shamed her. When she spoke about being bisexual while dating a man, she was accused of attention seeking. He told her he would pray for her soul.
Daisy is proud of her passion. She loves theatre, music, the gym and anthropology, and is learning to become her own “eccentric and proud self”.
THE DESTRUCTION
Calm Down
About the Work
2026
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
Daisy’s portrait is interrupted by a chequered strip across her mouth, physically silencing a woman who has repeatedly been characterised as too loud.
Across the work, “CALM DOWN!” explodes in the language of a comic book: oversized, theatrical and impossible to ignore. It takes a phrase used to dismiss Daisy’s anger and deliberately makes a spectacle of it.
The contradiction is central to the work. Daisy has been criticised for speaking too loudly about the things she cares about, while simultaneously being told to quieten down when she objects to being dismissed or misrepresented.
The destruction refuses to do either. Instead, the language used to diminish Daisy’s passion becomes the loudest thing in the frame.