Don’t miss our major exhibition Women & Freud: Patients, Pioneers, Artists (30 October 2024-5 May 2025). Supported by the Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Trust.

The Body Image Project

We considered the theme of the body image through a psychoanalytic lens, focusing on the fate of the female body in contemporary visual culture. 

Visitors to Freud’s study are often astonished by the myriad of faces and bodies they see there – hardly anyone feels truly alone among the magnificent collection of sculptures, where ancient gods of beauty stand alongside damaged and disfigured human forms, somehow echoing psychoanalytic interest in both desire and vulnerability.

The Body Image Project

The couch may be the ultimate symbol of engagement with the unconscious mind, but it also reminds us that everything started with the body – when Freud, a young neurologist fascinated with medically unexplained symptoms revolutionised the way of understanding them.

It was in this special room that we inaugurated our Body Image Project, inviting our neighbours – young women from South Hampstead High School, to consider the theme of the body image through a psychoanalytic lens, focusing on the fate of the female body in contemporary visual culture.

We pondered how bodies remind us of our fragility, mortality, sexuality, interrelatedness; how they become theatres of conflict, struggle and desire. Through discussions, presentations and art activities we explored how female bodies have been manipulated and fetishized, as beauty ideals change. We examined research on body-image and analysed articles and advertisements which promote body-shaming and a relentless pursuit of ‘perfection’.

Freud’s ideas guided us through the intricacies of modern-day obsession with the body, often treated as an object to be fixed and triumphed over with the help of a growing range of products and treatments.

Body Image Project Magazine

Subverting Media Naratives

Imaginary magazine covers

As part of the Project, participants and visitors designed imaginary magazine covers, aimed at subverting media narratives about the body and our visitors were filling the pages of these magazines with serious and ironic, moving and empowering personal reflections.

Instagram installation 

Participating young women created a powerful and beautifully evocative installation Will you ever be perfect enough for yourself?, which was briefly exhibited at the Museum:

“We all chose a number of our supposed physical flaws and represented them on 15cmx15cm squares using various media. These flaws, which we usually treat with distaste, were transformed into something valuable, as we gave time and effort to portraying them. We combined them in a format echoing an Instagram feed, however with a vulnerability seldom seen on social media. The chosen shape of our depictions (the square or box) also reflected the fact that women are often put into boxes according to their physical appearance. We hoped to demonstrate that what they may view as their physical flaws are not something to be detested, but rather to be celebrated.”“… I loved everything about this project, especially the fact that it made me feel better about my body which I used to hate! I liked applying Freud’s ideas to everyday life like the body shaming on social media. It was very thought provoking! I feel calmer and stronger inside!!! Also loved learning about his collection which matched the topic.”
Year 12 Project Participant, South Hampstead High School

 

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