Abstract
Corset for a Nouvelle Année is part of my Mauvaise Foi series incorporating personal visual narrative with a poem by Semonides, considered to be the first misogynistic old poem . Mauvaise Foi (bad faith) is a philosophical concept used by existentialist philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir to describe the phenomenon where human beings under pressure from social forces adopt false values and disown their innate freedom hence acting inauthentically.
We are constantly fielding generalized, persistent, pervasive fears or uncertainties grounded in realities that run from the mundane to the extraordinary. They emerge from the past, exist in the present, and form in anticipation of the future. We experience them at a distance - military conflicts, political elections, global warming. We experience them up close - workplace politics, a pandemic, a death in the family. Even in moments of ease or joy we co-exist with this undertow. My work, drawing on imagery from family history and the world around me, is a conversation about these overlapping, colliding multiple worlds and resisting mauvaise foi. Play is critical in this project.