Protest Art

It's not so much a social justice issue as it is an internal/mental problem, however I've chosen to write about artists that protest Anorexia and pro-ana tendencies. This is an important topic to me for a number of reasons, the first being the everlasting effect it can have on someone's body. Anorexia is a eating disorder and mental illness that affects many people around the world, especially young and young adult females. When these girls starve themselves they destroy their bodies both externally and internally. Externally, their skin begins to thin and become discolored, they age at an execrated rate, and they grow wrinkles, dark eye bags, and dry, rough patches. Internally, their organs deteriorate, their heart beats begin to slow dramatically, and their immunes systems are weakened. It is really heartbreaking to know that these girls are literally killing themselves to try and conform to societies standards of beauty, another reason why this topic is important to me. These girls are starving themselves to "become" beautiful because they don't know that they already are. I have a personal issue with how many people walk this earth not knowing how valuable and beautiful they are, so when people go to extreme measures to fix something that isn't broken I'm extremely bothered.

This is an anti Anorexia (and Bulimia) photograph taken by Lottie Lou. The photo features Barbie, an iconic symbol for beauty and perfection to young girls, forcing herself to purge. The photo portrays the attainability of  society's image of beauty and forces girls to step back and take a look at what they're doing to themselves.

This is an anti Anorexia photo taken by Israel Cohen as a part of the "Set Them Free" campaign. The photo is of a female holding a knife and fork in the same fashion that a prisoner holds the bars of a prison cell. This photo is symbolic of the obsessive behaviors Anorexics have with food and how those food obsessions overtake their lives and "trap" them. The idea behind the "Set Them Free" campaign in this instance is to set girls with Anorexia free from the illness.


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/isabelle-caro-anorexia-sufferer-who-appeared-in-a-global-campaign-against-the-disorder-2185196.html