While researching artists for my curatorial debut,
I discovered Laia Abril. She is a Spanish artist that grew up in Barcelona and
her work is mainly documentary. The project I am working on is shedding a light
into what strangers find they don’t like and like about themselves physically.
A contemporary idea: Body Image, everyone faces them these days whether through
bullying or in the comparison of oneself with the media. Laia Abril took the
idea of re-introducing the viewer to Anorexia in a new way, through the eyes of
its fans.
This is a close and personal subject
to me, after having met a girl who suffered from Anorexia. This girl had the
hardest time being normal because this disease overcame her body and mind.
These “Pro-Ana” websites are also real, and very terrifying because people
encourage others to continue with the sickness that ravages them. Laia Abril
retakes self-portraits from the screen she views them off of.
The images are of girls squeezing in
their stomachs, measuring their wrists and arms, standing up or lying down. The
images are haunting and ghostly because the subject looks as if they could just
disappear anyway. All of these women are dressed in hardly anything and seem to
be almost proud in their disfigurement of their bodies. The idea that their
bodies are not thin enough, or not perfect enough goes racing through their
minds. And even though the images are only of women, men also experience this
disease though it is not as popular in the media.
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