University of Illinois Chicago
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The Tight Room

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posted on 2010-09-01, 00:00 authored by Heejoo Kim
My interests place unreal and surreal spaces in relation to reality. The tight room is constructed on the concept and background of corsets. This temporal and spatial dimension reflects how we perceive past and future meanings of corsets physically as well as psychologically. Although corsets originated in the 16th century, they have become a symbol of Victorian upper-class matrons. In the Victorian age the thinner the female waist, the more attractive a figure was considered. Girls of this era aspired to marry before 21 with a waist measurement less than the years of her age. In pursuit of this passion of being thinner, corsets caused obvious physical and mental health problems. They were frequently laced so tightly that women often fainted due to numbness of lower body and legs. This phenomenon produced the image of female as a fragile, pathetic, helpless creature. Even though the actual corset itself is disappearing, the concept behind it has been internalized through extreme diet and plastic surgery. This image is a screen capture of the Maya (3 dimension animation program) animation.

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Finalist in 2009 in The Image of Research, a competition for students in graduate or professional degree programs at UIC, sponsored by UIC's Graduate College and the University Library. Images of award recipients and honorable mention images on exhibition in the Richard J. Daley Library and the Library of the Health Sciences, April 16-May 12, 2009.

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2009-01-01

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