ELISHA COX ART
Chairs (2018-2020)
Growing up in a western society, I was taught that fat was associated with many words, such as lazy, weak and ugly (Ogden, 1992). Throughout my life I often felt uncomfortable with sitting down, as I felt as if the second I touched the chair everyone glances and instantly believes in the judgements that larger people are lazy.
As a response to my feelings towards chairs I produced many sculptures to express my emotions towards chairs and the experience of sitting down when being a larger woman. Throughout this page is a few examples of my chair work between 2018- 2020.
'Balance', (2018)
‘Balance’ (Elisha Cox, 2019) was the experimental sculptural piece that led me to the focused practice I am engaging with today. I produced ‘Balance’ only a few days after finishing ‘Too comfortable’ (Elisha Cox, 2019) and to begin with, the piece was a response to how I felt after evaluating ‘Too comfortable’. I made ‘Balance’ to express how I felt as if there is no balance between our online and real lives. I wanted to show our dependence on this comfort by leaning the chair onto the foam. (See figure below) As I was exploring these issues, I was researching and developing my thoughts on body image and as I was doing so the realization of the unbalanced society, we live in arose. We seem to think its balanced, but when you view my work, a lot like our lives, the chair (representing a human) is in fact not balanced, but dependent on the foam to be upright. The paper roll emphasizes the reliance and pressure we seem to put on ourselves from society. I was trying to convey this imbalance in reliance on others in what we perceive is such a stable society. We rely on society so much that we do not seem to question any immoral suggestions in which society may suggest daily. In the next paragraph below, I have reflectively written about my experience in Cyprus regarding their traditional coffee shops.
Passing through old town Nicosia seemed to always become an uncomfortable experience for me, due to older men and their traditional coffee shops giving me uncomfortable glares. After speaking to one of my Greek-Cypriot friends they explained to me why I was receiving so many looks from the older men in the coffee shops as I passed. It was simply because I was a female. The traditional coffee shops did not welcome females, it was seen as a man’s place, not a female. She said, “The males go out to socialize together when their partners clean and look after the house.” Tovar states, “We are taught that men are the key to happiness and fulfilment. We fear that without heterosexual marriage and childbearing we cannot become people who matter or “real” adults” (2018, Pg. 66). This quote suggests that women in the 21st century feel a necessity to become ideal in other physiological ways than appearing in a certain manner; subsequently leading to men. Women are led to believe that their value is less of that of a man, and therefore believe that to be valued you need to be valued by a man. Tovar continues to exclaim about man’s place in society in relation to the female body and bodily existence, “It is important to recognize that men become both the stand-ins for cultural approval and the enforcers of normality, even though they are also subject to the realities of our oppressive gender paradigm. It is often at their hands that women and girls learn that their emotional, professional and romantic wellbeing depends on proximity to men” (2018, Pg. 67). As John Berger states “we see ourselves as a reflection of how others see us” (2008, Pg. 22). As men see a woman as being less value in the hierarchy of society, that then makes a woman feel less valued. As Berger suggests we see ourselves through the eyes of others. Therefore, the more men and society judge women by their actions and bodies, the more woman believe in these judgments. If we would all accept one another for our imperfections, we would not feel the need to have movements such as the feminist movement. We would simply be humans; not bodies, not walking adverts, not perfect, just humans.
'Too comfortable', (2018)
Responding to how I felt at the time towards social media influencing the way the larger female body is viewed as an important factor for ‘Too comfortable’ (Elisha Cox, 2019). My research had started to focus on mobile phone addiction, social media and its effects on how the body is viewed. I believed social media-fuelled the dehumanization of females who have larger bodies, as personally the primary source in which I felt the most discriminated was online through social media apps, such as Instagram. Tovar states, “Diet culture teaches a woman that we need to lose weight by any means necessary, thereby reducing us to mere bodies who either do or do not conform to externally set standards. This is dehumanization; plain and simple” (2018, Pg. 58). As Tovar declared we are dehumanized to a mere body, a female body that must conform to the ideal which society chooses. There are approximately
five hundred million accounts active on Instagram daily, all vulnerable to the public eye. However, each individual there has the ability to only be seen as they wish for the public to view them.
In an interview I lead with one of my fellow English exchange students, Danna, she says,
“Editing apps completely mess with the mind. People are airbrushing their face,
making their waist slimmer and making their boobs bigger. . . people are trying to look
like models who aren’t even real . . . I think everyone needs to take a step back and
realize not everything they see online is real” (Richards, 2019).
Danna claims that editing apps allow you to edit yourself to your ideal without changing your physical appearance. I believe this ability to change your outer appearance online to become your ideal is an issue. As it opens the opportunity for the individuals to change their persona along with their physical self’s online presence. Eric Goffman states in his book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life that, “Society is organized on the principle that any individual who possesses certain social characteristics has a moral right to expect that others will value and treat him in an appropriate way” (1969, Pg. 24). Therefore, if Goffman’s ideas were applied to the modern social landscape, then they would likely suggest that if an individual was to incorporate characteristics of the ideal within their social media platform, whether or not they have those digital characteristics personally, the public responses will be according to those characteristics and therefore view the individual as more conforming to society’s ideal. I believe the problem with this is our society is becoming addicted to mobile phones, as they are a comfortable space in which they can go to, to ignore the realities of the world. Our society is too comfortable with sitting back and ignoring real-life issues such as body image and even the environmental issues surrounding climate change. I suggest we spend so much time online in the 21st century that we struggle to interact with the real world or others. As Srivastava suggests, “Some sociologists argue that as many young people choose to text rather than to talk about awkward or emotionally difficult situations that this will impact on their capacity to interact with each other” (2005, Pg. 125). As Srivastava suggests, we turn to mobile phones for support as a comfort barrier between us and the real world. ‘Too comfortable’ is a response to this. To try and emphasize to our society that our love for social media is not all positive.
'Too comfortable |' and 'Too comfortable ||', (2019-20)
