Ideas of Beauty: Conversations

Ideas of Beauty: Conversations is an internet-based participatory book composed of sound and text, which embodies a selection of women's processes, thoughts, and advice about beauty. It is based upon an exploration of how women, in general, think of themselves in relation to the ideologies of beauty and its societal pressures. Since it is only the outcome of the repetitive and laborious procedures affiliated with beauty that are seen, I am bringing the time consuming and sometimes painful processes associated with the rituals of beautification to the forefront. This artwork is meant to invite the viewer to interact with it by listening and sharing a moment in order to obtain a better understanding of how the processes of a beautification ritual become an integrated aspect of a woman's internal self.

Within the hair salon culture, women have a higher tendency to share intimate thoughts and experiences within the setting of a collective. I decided that the arena that closely echoed the security and camaraderie found in the hair salon was the Internet.  The methodologies I chose to employ were in the form of a participation request/questionnaire sent to women via email, an open Internet call for participation, and a participation request from a social networking site.

Ideas of Beauty: Conversations involves an anonymous redistribution of the responses (after editing and reorganising) that I received through other vehicles of media: text and sound.