“You have such a pretty face.” It’s one of those innocuous-sounding compliments given to fat people. It’s a compliment where a “but” is implied – because in the absence of mentioning all of me, I realized that something was wrong with me. For most of my life, I’ve occupied a fat body, navigating currents of self-acceptance and hate. In the accidental brush against a stranger or overflowing into an adjacent airline seat, I have always been aware of the politics of space. Even with body positivity movements in recent years, and more visible fat bodies in mainstream media, I walk a line of visibility and invisibility, self-love and revulsion. Accepting and owning my fatness feels like a political, transgressive act.
In this series of photographs, entitled XS, my body unapologetically occupies the space within the frame. Pastel bodysuits and tights transform my fleshiness into new landscapes and amorphous shapes. These cropped images of various body parts such as stomach, thighs and hips become a formal study of the parts of me that society has shunned. With these photographs, I create a quiet resistance that subverts traditional ideas of beauty. I am in control of these images of a body that society tells me is out of control.
