A Golden Star for Those Who Choose to Place it There
A Gold Star for Those Who Choose to Place it There, explores the relationship between the use of sticker to judge the quality of something and the aesthetic values I place on parts of my body. As I kid I remember being quite obsessed with the value of a golden star or a green smiley face sticker. I went out of my way to clean up after myself in class or try my hardest on every assignment just for a simple paper sticker that I would soon loose or forget about. It’s funny what value children place on certain objects simply because a figure of authority told us it was valuable. As an adult, in the age of social medial and perfect, flawless figures their will always be parts of my body I deem too gaunt, too boney, to asymmetrical, but this collection of photographs is meant to give me the power to explore my body in a beautiful way. I have for a majority of my life been struggling with my gender identity, an eating disorder, and depression which all contribute to a worsening self image. This obsession I had with picking at my skin and flaws was causing me to spiral into forms of self harm. I had tunnel vision and I could only see the parts I had chosen to see as bad. It has taken a lot of work to stabilize and understand how to regulate myself and my mental health. In A Gold Star for Those Who Choose to Place it There, the act of placing stickers all across my body I had found a sense of catharsis, and I began to have a revelation that their were far more areas of my body I found beautiful than I had realized. A Gold Star for Those Who Choose to Place it There was my opportunity to sit with my own naked body and really look at it even if I did not want to. This collection has had a lasting impact on the way I see my body and given me a new form of confidence that I had not known was there.