Namra Arshad 

Professor Cacoilo 

Acts of Resistance: Activist, Interlopers, and pranksters 

Feast and Famine

                 In the exhibition Feast and Famine, there were a lot of projects by different artist that caught my attention. These art pieces were used to tell a story. Food was used as a way to symbolize economics, politics, body image and environment. All the art work in the exhibition brought attention to the impact of food production and food justice. Every piece in exhibit brought awareness about food industry and issues of food production from an artist’s view. It was a little hard for me to directly relate my semester projects to the projects displayed in the exhibit. But after looking at some of the projects shown in exhibit from different perspective, I was able to connect three of the projects to my project. 

     The two main projects that I would be writing about are “Thin” by Lauren Greenfiel and Stitches of Strength. The project “Thin” by Lauren Greenfiel is a documentary that bring awareness about eating disorder. A series of photographs were displayed in the exhibit from the documentary. These were the pictures of victims. These pictures expressed their stories behind eating disorder. There were pictures from before and after those women had undergone the treatment, showing women are only acceptable if they are seen and act certain ways. Ways that make them desirable in society’s eyes and if not, they are pressured to change themselves or else they are not valuable. This is directly related to my project as in how women are supposed to fit in society. What they should eat, wear, act and what career is fit for a woman. Pressure of fitting in a society makes it hard for them to follow their desires, no matter if it is picking a sport in middle school or a career in life. This project doesn’t only reflect how women are seen as objects, but one has to look at the bigger picture of how it targets women to be certain way their entire life. 

"THIN" by Lauren Greenfiel

  Second project that I have picked is Stitches of Strength. This piece was very powerful and stood out to me. It was a quilt made up different color of pieces with words written on it. These words were written by the victims of sexual assault. Victims of social assault often stay quiet or suffer within because it’s hard for them to explain how they feel. And no one can actually understand unless they have experienced it themselves. This project is not directly related to my semester project but to one of many aspects of project. My project is about the how we can encourage women of color and overall women to pursue their dreams when it comes to their careers. But it is hard because of gender inequality and most of STEM careers to known to be “masculine.” But as more women have entered in these fields of work has entered, number of sexual assaults has also increased. According to statics, 79% of the respondents who reported having experienced workplace sexual harassment were female; 21% were male. This ratio shows why women hesitates from pursuing their careers in male dominant fields.

Stitches of strength

What were they wearing with victims messages