Helena Foczpańska

The Orifice is a multi-screen video installation which reflects the age-old societal obsession with judging female bodies. They are often looked at through a magnifying glass, treated like collages of separate parts whose primary function is to provide aesthetic pleasure, while the person inside the skin is ignored. This approach has become even more prominent in the era of omnipresent cameras and screens. A cultural canon has been created to view women on-screen as either sex objects or as holy unearthly creatures; either way, they are deprived of the right to be simply human. This installation aims to have a conversation with that culture, by using its own means to undermine it.

Here, the camera is so focused on details that it ends up penetrating the skin and revealing the anatomy of the human inside. The pixels imprisoning female representation onscreen end up being swallowed by women’s mouths. Orifices serve as annoying reminders that women are living beings that do not cease to exist when they escape the reach of the public eye. Orifices suggest bodily fluids, organs, and biological functions — the abject aspects of womanhood that do not abide by the aesthetic needs of society.