The series ‘No Time For Romance’ has centred around the experiences of being a woman in modern society, particularly focusing on modern day dating. This project began as a means of exploring individual identity but progressed into the observation of images that we, as a society, choose to put out into the world. The pressures from the media that women have felt for decades to present themselves in a particular way is reflected in the photographs that we deem ‘worthy’ to be uploaded to social media. To look thin but not too thin, sexy but not provocative… a long list of often unattainable checkboxes in order to be ‘acceptable’. This project has focused particularly on the dating app, Tinder, where the images which are chosen to best represent ourselves are often the ones which do not necessarily reflect reality but the ‘perfect’, false reality that we prefer to present to the world. The nature of the cattle-market-like swiping either left or right for the ‘matched’ stamp of approval, adds to the pressures felt by women to look a certain way.

‘No Time For Romance’ depicts honest self portraits contradicting the type of imagery that is typically seen on Tinder and challenges the ideology of what a socially acceptable, self curated series of images look like for a dating profile. Mimicking the motion of swiping left and right on Tinder, this series is exhibited on a touchscreen kiosk which viewers interact with by swiping for the next image.
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Awards: The Helen A Rose Bequest Award for this series. Burns is now going on to study the MLitt Curatorial Practice (Contemporary Art) course at Glasgow School of Art.