The body has always been a battleground. Current legal debates and changes to state laws regarding abortion have ignited protests across the country as activists fight for bodily autonomy. At the same time, the phrase “my body, my choice” (a former rallying cry for the pro-choice and feminist movements) has been co-opted by anti-vaxxers who oppose public health mandates for face masks and vaccination. The role of artists in these conversations is critical, as their work can help us shift the way we think about and understand these issues. In this class, students explore the ways that the body has become a site and symbol of protest and create artworks to explore the relationships between ideas of personal freedom and public accountability in contemporary times.
On the very first day of class, students were asked to make a creative response to the question, "what does 'my body, my choice' mean to you?". Students' artwork offered their peers and instructors a glimpse into why the students chose to participate in this class, and it allowed the instructors to build off of student interests to create a student-centered curriculum.
For classes two and three, students were asked to create an artwork that represents their current relationship with their bodies. Through a variety of mediums, students were able to convey strong, complicated emotions that represent how they see their own body. This project ended with our first group critique in which students shared their own work and provided valuable feedback to one another.
Many students were particularly interested in the topic of this class as it relates to our current pandemic. In class four, students engaged in a thoughtful discussion on anti-maskers and anti-vaxers using the phrase "my body, my choice", a phrase that, previously, was exclusively used for women's reproductive rights. After this intriguing conversation, students creatively reflected on these contradictions.
In class five, we looked at control beyond the government and ventured into the media! In looking at who controls our bodies, we factored in the ways that media – whether that be social media, magazines, or advertisements – convey unrealistic expectations of our bodies that ultimately lead to many people having a negative image of our own body. Students were asked to create an advertisement in response to this lesson.
Stepping away from what our bodies mean in a physical sense, lesson six looked into what our digital bodies are. We explored our digital identities and the prevailing dilemma of expectations vs. reality. Students created a visual response to the lesson by conveying their own experience with technology.
Mari Vormer is a photographer currently based in Brooklyn, NY. She primarily shoots medium and large format infrared and color slide film, and occasionally gambles in food photography, too! She has always been passionate about equity and kindness in the classroom, and is currently working on receiving her Masters in Art Education from NYU with dreams of teaching high school.
Giacomo Fortunato has been an editorial, advertising, and fine art photographer in NYC for the past 15 years. His work explores themes of masculinity, American subcultures, and the bizarreness prevalent in our everyday lives.
IG: @giacomofortunato
"I feel that Visionary Studios has taught me a lot about this important topic of my body my choice. And it is a topic very important to me so I am very glad that I was able to make art pieces that relate to this topic and I can really advocate for. Visionary studios also taught me different aspects of this topic and that there isn’t one definition to my body my choice :) And I loved the community we were able to create and I had so much fun in all of the classes!!! :)"
"I feel like my biggest takeaway from this course was the variety of artistic mediums that could be used to communicate an important idea. The artists that were shown gave me a lot of inspiration for the projects we’ve done in class, and other personal pieces."
"Before this visionary studio class I hadn’t paid attention to body image much before. It was just like something I noticed and knew problems existed among this topic but I never really understood the leveling of it. With this class, I got to learn not only how other people look at body image but how they portray it in their own individual ways which gave me numerous ideas on what body image meant and how it affects people."
"I feel like I’ve taken away a lot of different methods of thinking about art and ideas, but one of my favorite skills that I’ve gained is the ability to rabbit hole/dig very deep into art and ideas and creation in order to connect concepts and string them together and I’ve also learned how to express that process in my art. It was also really fun and interesting."