Window (Un)Dressing

In the Harvard Independent’s 2021 Sex Issue, we published a photo series titled “Blow(up) Job.” The original intent of the piece was to address people’s discomfort with sex, but the artists ended up finding a deeper truth. They wrote, “We started by trying to take something taboo and push into the daylight. We ended up realizing that what we thought was offensive to other people actually wasn’t. It was beautiful.” Four years later, we want to pay homage to the piece that redefined how the Independent incorporates photography into our issues.

The photographed scene that we’ve created deals not just with sex but also with voyeurism. While Harvard has always been in the spotlight, we have recently found ourselves under even greater scrutiny from entities such as the Trump administration and various media organizations. It seems the whole world is desperate to catch a glimpse of the lives of Harvard students and impose its power on us. They are the outsiders, looking in, disrupting the intimacy of our community. In this light, we hope the creation of this work and its proliferation will inspire a rebellious spirit so often associated with sex, promiscuity, and action—a reminder that a peek into a window can only tell you so much.

Our stories, our experiences, our opinions, and our passions are as complex as the sex positions these dolls have found themselves in.

Photography and set design team: Jordan Wasserberger ’27, Mia Tavares ’27, Sophia Gonzalez ’28, Alex Mullen ’29, Osariemen Unuigbe ’29, Wallace Selph ’29, and Sasha Cavell ’29

Photos taken and edited by: Jordan Wasserberger ’27

Written by: Mia Tavares ’27

A special thanks to the residents of Greenough for allowing us to use their space.