"Rapid Oversexualisation of Today's Youth" Art Installation
AIP1 Session 10
For this session I had to create a temporary installation using reflection (mirrors, water, shadows/light). I decided to do an installation that depended on the effects of shadows.
The idea came to me when I was reflecting upon the events of my life (thing I do at least once a week, usually followed by stress eating). It occured to me that the standards of childhood THEN are different from NOW. Nowadays, I feel like people are growing up too fast (sounds like something my grandma would say but hey), as a result of media exposure like social media, teen magazines, movies and the like. Kids my age, high school freshmen, are already talking about cosmetic surgeries, or have got them already (my friend's friend got an eyelid surgery when she was 14 years old). One can't spend a day on the internet without hearing about yet another pregnant teenager, another makeup commercial, another person ranting about the single life... the list goes on and on and on.
"Rapid Oversexualisation of Today's Youth" depicts just that---a collection of children's stuff like rock collections, mini knick-knacks, stuffed animals, innocent items that are composed in such a way that the shadow resembles a woman laying down with her legs open and breasts donned.
I chose to work with shadows because I think that their reflections are truer than those of mirrors or water, for example. Shadows follow you wherever you go, almost like your double self. The effect is silent yet haunting---taking away the innocence and turning it into something vulgar.
Camera and lighting experiments
experimenting with forms and objects
painstaking process, over 4 hours of arranging and rearranging in the darkness
Items include: a green alpaca, a flashlight, a toy puzzle, a toy aeroplane, an owl sculpture, two rock collections, an award ribbon for Best Swimmer (my brother's), a green alien USB and a paintbrush (and desk lamp)
The installation is also somewhat inspired by The Red Hot Chilli Pepper's "Californication", which tells of a world that is becoming too commercialised, where people are forced into thinking they must look/behave a certain way to be accepted, where children are fascinated by dreams of growing up and "looking fabulous", without being aware of the consequences.