Week 1 Task - A Disruptive Force
I searched for articles about the Mounjaro jab. Last module the theme had emerged as pain, then pain and pleasure - now what was forefront was hunger. I started in my searching from a perspective of negative feelings towards the GLP1 affecting drugs. My own position being, when the body speaks, it is time to listen not suppress any emerging dis-ease. It seems as though this position, not uncommonly for me, was not the predominant concern for writers/researchers on this subject. Articles based on critiquing the celebrity body image suggesting x or y are now too thin and implied mis-use of the injections were most common along with concerns surrounding affordability and side effects. This article interested me because of the idea that these GLP1 altering drugs could actually disrupt the ‘Ultra Processed Food’ industry which for me suddenly separated what I had lumped together - big pharma and the big food companies. Almost like a snake eating it’s own tail or eating the hand that feeds you.
The disruptive force of weight loss drugs: How GLP-1s do more than shed pounds | The Independent
So the piece of art I decided to make brought some of the aspects of this article together but also embracing the experience of paper sculpture from Week 2. I wanted to photograph my belly - a focal point location where people are injecting, the part of the body that many dieters target, the gut - where battles of good and bad micro-organisms take place on a daily basis. This photograph was taken on our dining table - another nod to context. I had given up sugar for January and the last sugar I ate was a bag of Cadburys chocolate coins - I kept the wrappers - I knew I wanted to make art with them. These spoke of big food companies motivated only by profit to me. I made a box with a black and white image of my belly inside with the golden coin wrappers. It reminded me of a poem I had written and the idea to make a book of poems ‘A Treasury of Flesh’ - that the weight I was carrying somehow held something beautiful and valuable inside to be discovered.
Treasury of Flesh Poem - Written February 2024