![]() ![]() Since the start of the “War on Terror” in 2001 an increasing number of security guidelines have hit plane travellers, that range from the legitimate to the absurd: no fireworks, acid, live plants, but neither food, makeup or water are allowed as hand luggage. Trust is eliminated from public services, always assuming the worst. Paranoia – Emilia Paranoica: Removed and Destroyed – Focal Point Gallery SouthendĮmilia Paranoica: Removed and Destroyed was a site-specific performance created for the Paranoia Exhibition at Focal Point Gallery in Southend on Sea exploring issues of paranoia around unattended luggage and the power of knowledge as a weapon of mass reconstruction.Įvery day, thousands of delays and security alerts on transport systems are sparked off by unattended luggage. Most of these products were used in the performance.Įmilia Paranoica – Perfect Ten – against the paranoia of fake beauty Photography and documentation by Marcus Haydock. Comments about her appearance led the artist to compulsive collecting of beauty products and tools in order to hopelessly perfect her image. ‘Emilia Paranoica’ was also the name with which Emilia Telese was taunted with in her teenage years, for not conforming to the current fashion of the time. The songs are included in the album Compagni, Cittadini, Fratelli Partigiani, which describes the protest against the appearance-obsessed society of Northern Italy in the hedonistic, consumerist 80?s. At the end of her performance, Perfect Ten becomes an installation dealing with issues of self-perception and the tyranny of the beauty industry.Įmilia Paranoica – Perfect Ten takes its name in part from ‘Emilia Paranoica’ and ‘Morire’, two 1985 punk songs from Italian anarchist band CCCP-Fedeli alla Linea. The rituals of cleansing, toning, moisturising and applying makeup is followed scrupulously to try and achieve an unachievable perfection. Using the latest beauty products, obsessively advertised in glossy magazines, Emilia Telese tries to replicate the looks of the perfect models depicted on them. The piece starts with a four hour live performance in which the artist is surrounded by her own collection of cosmetics and toiletries hoarded throughout her life. ![]() An obsession with eternal youth contrasting with a globally aging population.īeyond Stereotypes: Rebuilding the Foundation of Beauty Beliefs? Dove Global Study commissioned by Dove, a Unilever Beauty Brand) tells us that 90% of all women 15-64 worldwide want to change at least one aspect of their physical appearance and 67% of them withdraw from life-engaging activities due to feeling badly about their looks (among them things like giving an opinion, going to school, going to the doctor).Įmilia Paranoica – Perfect Ten took place in the Ziff Gallery at the Leeds City Art Gallery, where a series of paintings and sculptures depicting beauty ideals are kept, including Antonio Canova’s ‘Hope of Venus’. Paranoia is created, to the point that teenage girls trade wrinkle creams with their mothers and women under 25 seek plastic surgery to ‘fit in’ with unrealistic expectations. This fuels a multi-billion dollar industry based on insecurity about looks and a homogenized model of appearance that doesn’t take into account the individual, diverse reality of how women look in different cultures, at different ages and times of their life. Women and girls worldwide are incessantly bombarded with images of digitally enhanced, unrealistic female beauty based on an idealized version of Western-type body and face. It is increasingly difficult to perceive and accept one’s own appearance as ‘attractive’ or even ‘normal’.Įmilia Paranoica – Perfect Ten was a live art performance and installation dealing with image obsession and the concept of ‘fitting in’ by trying to achieve the unattainable and narrow ideals of beauty perpetrated by contemporary media. Our image-obsessed society constantly bombards us with enhanced, airbrushed photographs of perfect women. Touring: Focal Point Gallery, Southend, Oct/Nov 2006. Launch: Leeds City Arts Gallery, Leeds, 28th June 2006. Paranoia presented works of international artists exploring the essence of paranoia as one’s deluded interpretation of events, not the perception of the events themselves.Įmilia Telese performed a different piece of work at each venue. The exhibition was about the proximity of art and life against the backdrop of contemporary politics exploring issues of distrust, suspicion, delusion, fear and terror. Paranoia was a group exhibition Curated by Predrag Pajdic
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