1489

Art installation

This piece was inspired by the body-obsessed society we live in and the drastic measures people go through to obtain the ideal body image. I wanted to critique the dangers and absurdity of these ideals despite the outcome of fad diets. Vancouver in particular is home to a variety of health-oriented eateries thus the prominence of healthy food connoisseurs. This obsessive trend of meticulous calorie calculation gave birth to 1489.

1489 is a numerical figure that refers to the calories someone of my age, height, weight and amount of exercise is expected to intake every day. Each plate is equivalent to 1489 calories, therefore in three days, not meals, I can only consume so little food. I chose these well-known chocolate snacks to erect the unhealthy connotations associated with them to address the issue of counting calories. Despite each plate meeting my daily caloric intake, 1489 is meant to address the negatives to counting calories.

In order to produce each snack, I used mould putty to make moulds of an Oreo, a Reese cup and a Kit Kat bar. With these negative moulds, I was able to make positive moulds out of resin. The Oreo middles were made of clay.

This artwork, along with Untitled (Noses), was selected by UBC Visual Art professors to be in the UBC 2014 BFA BA Visual Art Graduating Exhibition, Marinate Me.