Fat Projections

This was from the January 24 incarnation, but you can see all at...

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 00:52:22 -0400

This was from the January 24 incarnation, but you can see all at the website: http://livingpictureprojects.com/

And a skip through time lands me...

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 00:47:20 -0400

I now live with Janie Martinez, who is featured in one of the below segments and appears in my film. The film, which was never released, was a successful thesis presentation. If I had more resources at my disposal, I would love to finish it for a future distribution. My cut is long and preachy. Too much talking. I know FCP, but I need an editor who didn’t marry the material.

Anyway, I’m quite happy here. I’m one of three roommates in a wonderful apartment in TriBeCa.

I return to Tumblr today because I’m applying for a job that uses Social Media, and I realize that I haven’t really kept up with my use of it. I’ve dabbled in twitter and indulge in facebook. I get curious over Apps like Grindr and 4Square, but my involvement always seems to wax and wane.

I’ve been busy these last 6 months as I made the transition to life in New York. There’s been dance classes, performance art, and temp jobs. I went to a Marilyn Wann lecture at Sarah Lawrence! And I’ve been making friends. In the coming months I’ll be choreographing for one friend’s show!

Prior to NYC, I had been living in my hometown of Charleston, WV, where I returned after graduation and philandering in China. I knew that I needed more for 2011, so I ventured up here through the snow. Soon my WV boy and poodle are moving up to share this sweet existence.

I hope that I continue to post to this Tumblr and keep it as a journal for my size politiking and forays into art.

More resources.

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 23:42:30 -0500

More resources.:

Today I stumbled upon this site is “an oral, visual and written history project which seeks to be a humanizing force in body image activism. By collecting and sharing the many and varied stories of individuals of size, the Fat Experience Project® seeks to engage with, educate, empower and enrich the lives of people of size, our allies […]”

The site links to 1) ‘Size Qeen,’ an online clothing store and 2) a gallery of positive body images called ‘Bellies are Beautiful’.

I’m happy to make these discoveries.

Now that I’m starting to see the vast array of resources, I need to think about how I will differentiate my exploration of the body and this culture from these other efforts. While my exhibition space will highlight the materiality of embodiment, I think I also need to engage how the embodied experiences changes with size and size-acceptance.

Here I can tie in questions about thinspo to the questions I ask about reactions to portrayals in the media. I think I may even need to interview one of these ‘thinspo’ authors, because they identify fat on their bodies; and they can talk about their cultural-online formation around their bodies in ways that engage a basic question: how do people pursue visibility for their bodies and their bodies’ ideals.

"Emily Rems on Fat Girl Flea Market: “This event is so freakin’ awesome because thrift..."

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 01:11:39 -0500

“Emily Rems on Fat Girl Flea Market: “This event is so freakin’ awesome because thrift shopping is usually a fruitless farce if you wear above a size 12. But once a year, this fundraiser for NOLOSE collects second-hand donations from the closets of big girls all over the city, and then sells ‘em off wikkid cheap in a melee of plus-size bargain madness. Its only been going on for three years, but each year the event gets bigger and bigger, drawing crowds from all over. This year, I finally got my act together and filled a whole garbage bag full of stuff to donate. I was carrying it across the intersection of 14th and 6th when a gang of fat ladies from BOSTON literally chased me down the street and surrounded me in front of Grey’s Papaya.””

- emilyrems.com

This is the game that I remember playing as a kid. The picture...

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 00:26:00 -0500

This is the game that I remember playing as a kid. The picture was taken by someone and posted on flicker. The comments and responses are worth looking at.

Tumblr is so much fun, when you learn how to work it!

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 23:59:57 -0500

Tumblr is so much fun, when you learn how to work it!

This is tragic. Thinspo sucks.

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 23:56:45 -0500

This is tragic. Thinspo sucks.:

I didn’t want to do this, because it’s just a little to sick. But I know that many don’t know or haven’t see any pro-Ana websites.

This one took me less than a minute to find. I just searched “thinspo” on google images and the fourth or so image was posted from this person’s Xanga.

I purposefully didn’t embed any thinspo as an image. As they say.. beware the jump, mind the gap… click on the link if you can stomach (absolutely no pun intended) this.

So I linked this with Janie Martinez below, but after learning a...

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 23:49:58 -0500

So I linked this with Janie Martinez below, but after learning a little more about how to navigate this site, I realized I could embed it here!

Vassar MEDS Seminar

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 23:44:00 -0500

Vassar MEDS Seminar:

This links to the main seminar page where you can find links to other students’ pages.

Sad little live-journal

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 20:43:49 -0500

So, looking at my compatriots’ tumblrs, I realize that I’ve been doing a little bit more of a live-journal thing.

I swear I never had one of these things, so I’m not sure why I’m falling into that format; but since it’s here, I’m going to utilize it.

Thinking about live-journals, I’m reminded of pro-ana personal websites. There are so many of. They post tragic images of emaciated women to inspire stricter adherence to dieting. It’s called “thinspo.”

Doing a live journal about my explorations of what body means sort of fits alongside this approach.

I’m not really setting out to make ‘fatspo.’ I’m not trying to influence any one’s eating habits. Primarily my project is just to show what’s going on. Of course my film is a statement; but I certainly don’t intend it to speak for anyone else.

I mean, it would be great if my final project inspires acceptance. I hope that by showing the vibrancy of fat subculture to people who haven’t come across it before I might be changing the world a little.

I’m also feeling much more interested in making a physical structure. Just looking at a screen doesn’t register the profound 3Dness of our bodies.

Okay, well that’s the post for today! Goodbye, my little live journal—full of self-indulgence and cliche.

Updates / Kavetching

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 12:47:24 -0500

Yesterday I went to the Galleria and saw a new plus-size clothing store for ‘juniors’. I’m going to go back soon and talk to some of the employees.

Janie Martinez and I are going to meet up in the Spring.

——

The rest of my coursework is driving me crazy. I already miss our Tuesday night seminar.

In making this log of my project and my journey, I want to be honest about the moments of frustration. Finals week (and generally the whole last month of a semester) never fosters much intellectual creativity. Burn-out/Zombie becomes the mode.

Whenever I run into anyone from the seminar, we talk about things. It seems like a lot of people are in the same boat. I’m surprised at how close we’ve grown. Some word of advice to the future generations: Never underestimate the value of a good cohort! Indulge each other’s eccentricities. Remember that this isn’t a competition. Our interests are too individual to lump together for comparison. Most importantly: engage with each other outside of class.

This is my first post! Woot! the photo is a digitally fucked...

Sat, 06 Dec 2008 17:15:48 -0500

This is my first post! Woot! the photo is a digitally fucked with picture I took of wet pavement after say, the first 200 or so raindrops. I felt like it was stratified and layered like my project? Hah.

Creation/Purpose

Sat, 06 Dec 2008 17:11:00 -0500

So today (Saturday Dec. 6, 2008) I am starting my tumblr about my project and its journey.

I’ll probably end up jumping back and forth chronologically, which might be confusing; but hopefully that will mirror my projects development— something that not entirely linear.

1. What is my project?

Right now (I say, because it’s bound to change), my project is an exploration of fat culture and the Size Acceptance Movement. I plan on making a film which shows how the incorporation of various media— on screen, on stage, in fashion, photography, and the blogosphere— frame fat in ways that widen the narrow discourse perpetuated in our fat-phobic culture.

2. How did I get here?

I took Women’s Studies 362- Thinking Women’s Bodies, and for my final paper I wanted to explore the fat body as abject but potentially powerful. I looked at several mainstream deptictions of fat which I thought contributed towards its abjection: the out of control fat body as depressed/sick, the comedic relief of a ‘failed’ feminity, and the sexualizing/fetishizing of a threatening form. In looking at this body as potentially powerful, I read Jeannette Winterson’s, Sexing the Cherry, which features a gargantuan heroine who destroys men who step in her way.

I also thought about my own relationship to fat. My experience of growing up with a mother at one point rapidly gained weight particularly informed this. I remembered being at an arcade once and throwing balls into ‘Big Bertha,’ a game in which one wins by throwing balls into an effigy of a large woman. Her stomach billows with air. Her raucaus laugh crescendos. She is there for you to take control, become complicit, in her lunatic consumption.

In my research, I stumbled upon a series of photographs that Leonard Nimoy (the actor who played Spock in Star Trek) took, which he titled as The Full Body Project. You can go to his site to see his work. In his artist statement he framed the project as a response to perilous culture of thin in the entertainment industry. He was baffled and disgusted by the overwhelming statistics of women with unhealthy BMIs.

3. My research journey, continues today!

I’ve found photographer Substantia Jones, whose website Adipositivity is phenomenal.

I’ve joined Big Fat Blog, which requires an approved membership to read.

Posting on BFB, I’ve since discovered a really amazing dance company/troupe, Big Moves.

I’ve also been directed towards Janie Martinez, a large model/actress who had a photo shoot on public art in NYC for a Korean television show. You can view here.