EXPLORING – Beautifaire

27 Sep

Identity is a latest exhibition exploring the realities of

Affecting one in 100 people, body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is a condition where an individual spends an unusual period of time worrying about flaws of their appearance, flaws which go unnoticed by other people. It typically affects young adults and teenagers, and although the condition is far-reaching, those that suffer will often draw back from speaking about it publicly on account of a fear they can be shamed as self-obsessive or vain. Identity is a latest exhibition that goals to challenge this stigma and begin an open conversation around it. Examining how our self-perceptions are shaped by experience, society and the media (in addition to its impact on mental health), the show will consider the importance of talking about these anxieties...

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27 Sep

Exploring the intense paths some men go right down

by Beauty Tips

Beauty, Featured

Exploring the intense paths some men go right down

Perhaps it’s because Burger King wasn’t a thing back then, but in Michelangelo’s historical depictions of man, everybody looked as if it would have a very fire bod. In his sculptures and illustrations, a bloke’s pectoral muscles, topped with tweakable nipples, protrude out over a wash-rack torso; their knife-sharp V-lines pointing down towards to their bits. It’s a picture that has, for therefore long, dominated Western culture’s perception of archetypal masculinity and male beauty: the final word, almost unattainable look. And yet some 500 years on, we’re still obsessing over it. Now though, it manifests less within the art world – where frailer frames usually tend to be fetishised – and more on our TV screens every summer, as we tune in...

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23 Aug

Becoming cyborgs: exploring the longer term of the human

by Beauty Tips

Beauty, Featured

Becoming cyborgs: exploring the longer term of the human

“Humans as we all know them won’t exist in the subsequent 50-100 years,” says Professor Kevin Warwick, British engineer, recipient of two higher doctorates, nine honorary doctorates, and certainly one of the world’s first cyborgs. “I definitely see a future by which we’re all adapted with cyborg abilities indirectly.” Human potential is evolving, and discussion around the concept of cyborgs is being met with increasing fervour by the broader public. The term cyborg has many nuanced meanings, but most frequently refers to those whose physical abilities are prolonged beyond normal human limitations, largely as a result of the mixing of human and machine – where technology becomes one with the human body. Professor Warwick has been experimenting on himself since 1998, dedicating...

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22 Aug

Exploring the mind-body problem and rise of body anxiety

by Beauty Tips

Beauty, Featured

Exploring the mind-body problem and rise of body anxiety

For hundreds of years, philosophers and psychologists have fought over the mind-body connection and this relationship continues to be just as fraught today. From the ‘obesity crisis’ to gender fluidity, the ways during which our psychological self pertains to the physical is complex and contentious. Within the seventeenth century, René Descartes argued that the mind exists individually from the body and that the body cannot think. Such dualist considering has been the dominant attitude toward the body ever since encouraging us to take care of the considering mind and dismiss that which is corporeal. The truth is, quite worryingly psychoanalyst Susie Orbach argues we are moving towards a dematerialised existence where every part we understand about living, “will occur within the realm...

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