For my final project at the Des Lee, I wanted to incorporate all three sources of body modification I have researched this semester: neck elongation, Victorian corsets, and foot binding. Throughout the research process, I discovered that the idea of confinement to a place physically through the inability to walk or breath properly, manifests into a mental captivity of the person undergoing the modification. By projecting the image of a woman struggling to free herself from these constraints onto a piece of furniture constructed to continue the use of the corset, a fainting couch, the memory and ephemeral scars of the history of body modification and transformation is shown. This links the historical past of these processes with the contemporary knowledge of their use and continued use today, just in different forms. For example, foot binding may have been specific to certain groups in China, but towering high heels are universal. While foot binding has ended in most areas, the same process occurs in walking in ill-fitting shoes for hours and hours of the day for many women.
Even in 1887, in the midst of the Victorian corset era, Dr. Robert L. Dickinson notes that, “In the adult female the form of the chest and abdomen and the respiratory movements are often undoubtedly modified by tight lacing.” To knowingly injure the body in order to present a more beautiful and desirable person is why this tradition continued and still does in contemporary fashion. However, the ways the body is sculpted are more surgical now due to many cosmetic procedures that are available. For my photograph in the show, I think the placement aids the idea of the normality of corsets. The couch is in plain view, though the photography acts as areminder, hidden in the back, that a person could not escape the transformative properties of the corset, neck elongation, or foot binding exercises. My research has brought me to the conclusion that confinement to a place was another modification to a person as a result of the outer garments.
Thomas, Pauline Weston. “Mid-Late Victorian Fashion and Costume History,” for Fashion-Era.com. Dickinson, Robert L., Lecturer on Obstetrics, Long Island College Hospital.”Questions of Pressure and Displacement,” The New York Medical Journal, 5 November, 1887.
http://www.fashion-era.com/mid-late_victorian_fashion.htm.
Tags: Student Exhibition
