The Bodymode Show

Eileen talks about The Bodymode Show:

Interview by Juice

JC:Your work is often orientated around the human form, tell me why?

EB: Our body is our vehicle through life, we live inside it, it is who we are, yet we never really take a good look at it. I caught myself yesterday staring at the veins on my hands and being fascinated how I have never ‘really’ noticed them before! There is so much I want to discover about our bodies, not necessarily from an anthropological point of view though.

JC:For The Bodymode Show you worked with performers, why not with ‘normal’ people?

EB:Performers are normal people. The only difference is that performers have been able to release certain masks, which we all put up. The questions I asked them through our sessions demanded honest answers though. I was not making a documentary, I aim to ask questions through beautiful visuals, so I chose to work with people who understand techniques of working with a lens.

JC:So why is ‘body image’ a topic that interests you?

EB: I worked as a model parallel to my studies and revisited the industry recently, to find not much has changed which is incredibly worrying, but above all bazaar. I have found that beauty which is sold to us has not much to do with real beauty, and in the same way attractiveness has not much to do with pure attraction and the word perfection has lost it’s meaning completely! I am not only interested in the controversial debate based upon the promotion of unhealthy looking female figures in the media, but I am also interested in answering a plethora of questions based on what we identify with various states of being and appearance in terms of our body.

EB:Tell me about working with your performers?

The journey was very insightful. Through my questions to them I was intrigued to discover the originality of perspectives each of us withholds in terms of our body image. The view we have of our bodies is formed socio-psychologically, it's also not static which defeats the object of our obsession over it.

JC:What do you hope to achieve through The Bodymode Show?

EB: Celebrate diversity and individualism, challenge us to rethink our views on the human form.

other Interviews with Eileen Botsford