6Alicia

I chose eating disorders for my social issue project because I'm very passionate about awareness, education, and and prevention of eating disorders. The stigma associated with eating disorders erases the majority of people who are suffering for it. I wanted to stress that not only underweight people have eating disorders, giving my figure curves and "fat", and that eating disorders are not about //not// eating, but about an impaired relationship with food. I have my figure facing away from the wrappers with the nutrition labels facing out to show that food becomes numbers to someone with an eating disorder. I gave my figure Russell's sign, a common sign of self-induced vomiting. In a whole, everything rests on the scale as a metaphor, for what eating disordered people are weighing is much more than their own bodies. My figure took a tumble half-way through the process, and I was very frustrated and had to glue it all back together with mod podge. I thought for sure I was just going to give up on the figure, but I pushed through my disappointment and finished the piece. Another thing I had to think my way around was finding the right places for the wrappers in the collage. I wanted my piece to be three dimensional all over instead of just the figure, which gave me one more dimension to worry about when I tried to get the collage all together. Eventually, they all came together in collage harmony. I'm not really sure how effective this piece is to an audience who first views it. I often got asked what my topic was, but I feel that if you or someone close to you has suffered from an eating disorder, my rendering of it would be accurate.I feel like the color scheme works really well, along with the medium used in it. I feel like this is consistent all around. I'd love to have been able to add statistics and infographic things, but I just don't think I have any room for that without pushing it overboard. If I had a chance to do this again, I would have spent more time on it, incorporating information with emotionalism.