diana shpungin / nicole engelmann

the chicken or the egg, 2002

photos from zing magazine " french cooking" issue 2002

dimensions variable

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The Chicken or the Egg, is a grouping of four photographs that illustrate variables in a standard three-quarter portrait pose. In each of the photos a blonde and a brunette women pose side by side and done stoic expressions. They wear identical gray uniforms and in turn each hold either an egg or a chicken. The four photographs although they appear as individual images are in fact mirrored reflections of one another.

The Chicken or the Egg, explores issues of hierarchy and ranking through the order of reading a visual image left to right, right to left, top to bottom, bottom to top. Who is the original source of the idea? Who is the leader and who is the follower? The Chicken or the Egg arrives at the root of the issues surrounding collaboration such as compromise and ego. The position of the objects and the subjects show possible and equal solutions. The images engage in the age-old power argument between the roles of the blonde and the brunette. The question of who comes first is left unanswered and loops to become a repeated action.