writing in hindsight

There is a negative social response to the idea of a woman breastfeeding in public and often there is a lot of controversy in the news and media.

Hollie McNish is a spoken word poet who speaks about her own experiences of alienation when breastfeeding her child for the first time in public. 

McNish not only addresses the stigma towards mothers breastfeeding in public in her poem, but also extends this into an insight into how the breastfeeding taboo is just factor of the derogatory representations of women as a whole that still occur within our society.

Firstly, I can completely understand that some people may find seeing a woman breastfeeding uncomfortable and therefore there has to be be some sort tact on behalf of the mother. Despite this, I think it's funny that something so natural can go as far as to be deemed as outright offensive. But this leads on to a very important underlying argument.

Breasts are advertised in the media all the time but this is always for the for the gratification of others. You are constantly shown these icons. From women in magazines with 'perfect' breasts to advertisements for breast enhancement surgeries and supplements - until as a woman you may feel that your breasts should look a certain way to portray the 'right' image to others.

Seeing as we are constantly being bombarded with breasts and how they should look, it seems absurd that they should be censored so vehemently when they are being used for their only practical function - to feed your child.

There's an elephant in the room and it's growing bigger as we speak. The elephant is social media, or more how it is affecting us communicating. It sounds so silly, right?

Technology is constantly developing and therefore it has become increasingly easy to communicate with each other - I can message a friend on the other side of the world and get a response literally in a matter of seconds. But it has become a bit excessive now and we are losing contact with real social interaction right before our eyes.

How often have you been speaking to someone and you realise that they aren't even listening because they are too busy on their phone? They're texting one person, while liking another person's status - stopping every so often to update a photographic itinerary of their life for instagram.

Big Eyes is the new film directed by Tim Burton set to be released in 2014. The film is autobiographical of the artist Margaret Keane, focusing on her art and tumultuous divorce.

I'm looking forward to seeing this film, because I have seen Margaret Keane's artwork before and it is easily recognisable (Keane definitely has a unique style) but I have never taken the time to learn about the private life of the artist. I'm excited to see the context behind the artist's style and the secret behind those 'big eyes'.

I went to this new installation by chance a couple of months ago with no idea what I was going to see.

You start by walking through a narrow passageway with a curtain at the end. You move the curtain to find out that the space opens out into a large room shrouded in darkness. The ceiling is black, the walls are black, the floor is black. The only illumination in the room comes from a singular spotlight pointed at the floor in the center of the room. And you are instructed to stand in the middle.

You begin to realise you are looking at a cinema screen when distorting images of the rush hour traffic and other urban elements play before you with an almost ghostly projection of yourself in the foreground.

The artist has been able to create an atmosphere as though I was behind a glass in an alternate dimension, looking into our own. Boulos in my opinion has I daresay, perfected the art of creating an atmosphere of alienation and disorientation and projecting those feelings onto the viewer.

Elements of the installation reminded me of the phantasmagoria and Pepper's Ghost, with the uncanny projections that dominated the room with their presence. However, what made this installation eerie for me was the artist's ability to utilise an everyday setting and create an element of surrealism in the ordinary.

In my opinion, one of the fundamentals of a great artist is their ability to successfully convey this message to the viewer as well as the artist's ability to instill particular feelings in them and that was the reason I thought that this project was fantastic.