Description
This paper examines the objectification of women’s breasts through judgments projected onto the physical attributes of breasts and how the subsequent judgments impact the body that carries them. I question why a highly-objective social value is placed on the aesthetics of breasts in Western culture and how this objectification inhibits the performance of the body. I want to understand how external and internal experiences are processed as a whole in the consciousness of the body, and in order for the body to live as a corporeal phenomenon. I have investigated the perception of women’s breasts from various point-of- views; including the breasts themselves, the female body, the other, in public spaces, in private spaces, how they are processed by the body both internally, and externally. In my thesis project, EVERYDAY Titties, I utilize women’s breasts to corrupt the viewer’s perception of the female body, and entice their attention. Images of the exhibition are on file with the School of Art, Design, and Art History. Culture’s projected fantasies of breasts are expanded upon in my work on the spectrum of desire and rejection. I work in sculpture, performance art, and video. For EVERYDAY Titties, I made prosthetic breasts that are exaggerated in form and function, and integrated into garments to create wearable sculptures. I perform the wearable sculptures in part of drastic characters that represent four different stages of being a woman. In EVERYDAY Titties, I utilize the prosthetic breasts as the representational façade of female sexuality for the body that carries the breasts. I perform breasts in part of the characters, thus I become the characters that imbue Western culture's "celebrated bresats. My intention is to highlight societal concerns surrounding oppression of women, the female body and female sexuality. I want to challenge the viewers social ethics in perceiving women’s breasts and the subsequent judgment placed on the women who carry those breasts. In the radicalism of EVERYDAY Titties, my goal is to induce a need for positive change in the viewer’s perceptions of women’s breasts, the female body and all oppressed bodies, intersecting my work with gender, race and class.
