I knew when I began thinking about the zine project that I wanted to do something I was passionate about. Immediately the first thing I thought about was promoting body positivity - as that is something I have worked hard to achieve in my own life, and to promote to people around me. However, zines are meant to make a statement, and although body positivity is a great thing to promote, it is a pretty general and I didn't feel like it was strong enough of a statement. I continued brainstorming how I could evolve this idea into something greater, and then it came to me. Our bodies are constantly being defined by numbers. In so many ways we base our own self-worth and love of ourself and our bodies by the numbers that define them in different areas of our lives. I started there, and I began to try and list all the ways I have experienced a number defining my life. The obvious - when shopping for clothes, but also in calories you consume, in the numbers that define your weight, in the statistics of your exercising and in your performance in school.
Originally, I was wanting this to be exclusive to women, because as a women, I can relate more directly and draw from my own experiences to create this art. Most of the time I create my art this way - based off of my own experiences and through my own lens of life. I am thinking, however, that zine culture is based off of inclusivity and sharing, which makes me want to include all bodies. People who identify as men experience these feelings as well. However, this also makes me want to be inclusive to all kinds of bodies of all identities, since they all experience these feelings. That may be too much for me to take on, but I am still thinking.
I then began to brainstorm how I might portray these different ways we are defined by numbers in my art, beginning with clothing sizes. I really want to use physical clothing tags as a collage and go from there.
Then for calories and food nutrition facts, I wanted the page to be overwhelming and chaotic surrounding a single piece of food, to convey that this feeling of chaos and intrusive thoughts are very real for some people surrounding food. Words hurt, and having these numbers define your body are overwhelming.
With the numbers on the scale part of the project, I thought I wanted to make it more of a positive message to turn away from the chaos. I feel like this would give the zine some depth. I wanted to use the scales and photoshop better affirmations to use when looking at the scale to change the way we look at our self and define our bodies. We are not defined by our weight, so why focus on that number? Scales can be very triggering and toxic for many people, and I wanted to turn something scary into art and love. This might be one of my favorite ideas...
I want to make the exercise stat page about the toxicity in working out and to mix the hard with the positive to relay the message of how this kind of rollercoaster of feelings is the troubled relationship some people have with the gym.
I am still not entirely sure if I will be keeping the grades and test scores part of this project in because I am struggling to decide if it fits within my idea or not. Do test score numbers and grades define your body? Or are they more defining of you as a person? Does this still work with what I am trying to convey? Or take away from it? Not sure yet.
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