10x10 Project
My Body, My Self
In the Fall of 2015, as a faculty at Middlebury College, VT, I conducted a campus–wide initiative called ‘10x10 Project’. It manifested itself as a large-scale visual installation composed of hundreds of individual responses to the prompt ‘My Body, My Self’. The project invited students, faculty and staff to reflect on the relationships between body, self, beliefs, image, mind, society, race, and identity on 10x10 inch squares. Poetry, collage, lightweight sculpture, photography and painting were used to display a kaleidoscopic and ofter contradicting views of ideas. Over 500 people participated in the project.
Some of the questions addressed were: How does the image of my body affect my fears, goals, admirations, and beliefs? What is the role of society in constructing this image? What is the relationship between my body and mind, my body and soul, my body and identity, my body and gender, and how do these relationships change in different circumstances and over time? Do I listen to my body? Do I only think about my body when it stops functioning properly?