Feast and Famine Exhibit

The “Feast and Famine” exhibit we visited in Newark explores food as a social, political, and bodily phenomenon. The ehibit shows us the relationship between food, death, and sex, while also showing its likeness as a medium for artistic experimentation. The artists draw attention to the impact that food production has on the world. When walking through the gallery I wanted to find pieces that incorporated societal standard in regards to food, of course, given the theme of the exhibit. Societal standards that if deviated from or gone against, result in judgement and ridicule.  "Humans are creatures of habit, fit in with their habits or fit outside of the habits and you will disappear from their view" (Interventionist). Society shames us and makes us feel invisible when we don’t adopt or fit their standards. My semester project is on anxiety and social prejudices and stigmas that are attached to mental health as a whole. Anxiety disorders alone affect more than 40 million adults in the United States, yet there is not enough conversation being had on mental health. I think Lauren Greenfield’s pieces from the series Thin and Ella Halpine’s “There Is No Shame in Asking For Help” tie into my semester project the most. 

 In 1997, Lauren Greenfield began documenting the lives of patients at the Renfrew Center in Coconut Creek, Florida. Renfrew is a forty bed residential facility that treats women with eating disorders. Greenfield was given unprecedented access to film the daily lives of patients. She created “Thin”, a photographic essay and documentary film about the treatment of eating disorders. “Thin” gives a view into the complicated and difficult process of treatment, the culture of rehab, and the experience of struggling with an eating disorder. The four photos installed in the gallery are only a small portion of this bigger project, but the message is still clear. It is not just about food or body image, but the web of personal, familial, cultural, and mental health issues in these women’s lives and many around the world who suffer from an eating disorder or mental disorder in general. Just like anxiety, eating disorders, especially in women, is all too common. One in seven women has an eating disorder and 64% of college-aged women have experienced eating disorder symptoms. Anorexia, with a mortality rate of 10%, is the

deadliest of all psychiatric disorders. I always question why there’s a stigma on mental illness. Society has not placed enough importance on mental health leading to prejudice attitudes around mental illness. People who suffer from mental illness have been made to internally stigmatize themselves; turning the stereotypes about mental illness adopted by society, towards themselves. The pictures taken by Lauren Greenfield show the effects that eating disorders have on these women and the role that society and mental illness play in all of it.

Not only did I love how the four pictures in this installment were of women, but that they included a woman of color. There is a stigma on mental disorders overall, but there is also a stigma regarding mental illness among people of color. “If one takes a step back, then, it's clear that social and cultural capital provide valuable insight into the power disparities that emerge from differences in race, class, gender, and cultural and geographical differences” (Seeing Power). People are quick to label a white person mentally ill in cases of mass shootings,  but if this person was of color it would be a different story. In instances like this it infuriates me that mental illness is used as a way to get out of a crime. On the other hand, if it were a person of color who committed the crime, mental illness wouldn’t even make its way into the conversation. 

The piece by Ella Halpine also stuck out to me. Halpine is a senior studio art major at the University of Vermont. Initially she was an environmental studies major with interests in sustainable agriculture. After taking an introductory drawing class, then graphic design, she switched to a studio art major. Halpine completed an independent study pursuing the relationship between art and food justice. She says, “Eating organic and eating local are really important, but the rhetoric can come off as shaming those who can’t afford the pricier options. The focus first needs to be on ensuring food accessibility and affordability before we can focus on promoting organic and local food.” In recent years society has put so much importance on eating ‘organic’ and locally sourced food, but that comes at a high price. Most are not able to maintain that type of lifestyle. Like she says, instead of shaming those who can’t afford these ‘healthier’ ‘pricier’ options, we need to focus on making these food options more accessible and affordable. In connection with mental health, there is a shame that people who suffer from these disorders, experience. There is a feeling of not being accepted and a fear of being judged, so we stay silent. We battle internally. Like Halpine’s poster says, there is no shame in asking for help, but of course society continues to make us feel as if we should feel ashamed.