Thesis Studio One – Final Presentation
Thesis Studio Two – Final Presentation
My MFA Design and Technology Thesis Project
Being anorexia is self starvation.
Anorexia isn’t always about food and body weight; it is more about other issues like depression, loneliness, insecurity, pressure to be perfect, or feeling out of control. Food and weight is more of a comfort, something you can control. It’s more of a control thing for me that escalated to a depletion of body image and self worth.
last semester (Spring 2013) I took Fashionable Technology taught by Sabine Seymour uses the phrase “Skin as Metaphor” as a way of expressing the “body as the centerpiece to discuss the psychology of interactivity on the body, the historical background, the intertwining of technology, science, and fashion, and precedents in art and fashion” (from the course description of her class)
I have been dealing with my disorder for almost 15 years. I’m much better, meaning I eat at least once a day and maintain a weight between 115-120lb. At my worst, I weighed 108lb and would go three days in between meals. I don’t remember being hungry during those three days. I do not remember ever being skinny. In my eyes I have always looked the same: I could afford to lose a few pounds. I still have very bad days–I can’t stand being in my own skin, food making me physically sick, etc. On these days, it take every ounce of willpower I have to walk out the door. I have even waited for subway cars that aren’t full so I won’t be touched by a stranger.
I don’t know how or why I developed this issue. I don’t know why it’s continuing, but I am at a point where I feel I can start doing something about it. I believe that something is my thesis project. I am not setting out to find a cure for the disorder or shove it in others’ faces that they need to pity me and others. In fact, I want my project to be a positive solution to the topic, a exploratory art therapy project that discusses the body or skin as a metaphor.
I am approaching my thesis project as skin as metaphor by designing a series of materials that will be an interpretation of distorted body image and eating disorders. I want to explore ways of healing from my eating disorder by developing these materials from food that will cover the body, as a second skin.
VERONICA BLACK © 2013