Female recruits in the Israeli army in the photo of Maya Toledano

During her trip to her homeland, New York-based artist Mayan Toledano took a very intimate series of beautiful photographs about girls in the Israeli army. Thus, the photographer wanted to return a part of her own youth - the time when Maya served herself and was deprived of all cultural symbols of “femininity”. The concepts of gender, nationality or personality differences were to disappear from the girl’s life for the entire period of compulsory service in the Israeli army - national identity came first. Maya still remembers how she was afraid that the military uniform would destroy her emerging femininity.

Jewish photographer and director Maya Toledano, who lives in New York, is quite famous in fashion circles for the controversial themes that she touches on in her work, which has attracted various publications around the world, such as Kenzo, Nike, Chanel, Gucci, Vogue and etc. However, the main idea of her photographs is to focus on tender feelings, to reveal themes of emotions, intimacy and relationships in her photographs.

Maya filmed this episode in 2016, showing the daily life of female recruits. The photographer herself also served and she always wanted to bring a little femininity into a system devoid of gender differences and other individualism. It is for this reason that the girls in her photographs look like beauties from social networks and thanks to the warm film processing, you can feel not only their external image, but also read their mood and emotions, which even a strict military uniform cannot hide.

In a series of photographs by Maya Toledano, young girls charmingly manage to resist this fear and sometimes very gracefully push national identity into the background. Beneath the rough fabric of the soldier's uniform lies a vibrant personality. Even in the army, they try to follow the path of creation, choosing creative specialties such as journalism, directing or education. The girls carefully select uniforms, shoes, monotonous white T-shirts and almost invisible jewelry.

Of course, this sounds paradoxical, but the seeming indifference of the heroines of Maya’s photographs is in fact a clear manifestation of independence. This feigned melancholy and disdain is their special way of protesting against violence and the destruction of gender boundaries.

The goal of this project was to instill in the audience a lasting aversion to militarism. We cannot judge whether Toledano succeeded or not, but one thing we know for sure - the pictures turned out amazing, the girls are stunning