Author: Autumn

From my sequence of eating images, I felt most drawn to these two in the middle. Firstly because of the emotions, I felt being so different between takes. One being quite negative, Guilt. The other being quote positive, Pride. Like I had said in my previous blog post, I was feeling really guilty about eating half of the meal. My brain was telling me to stop, that I was eating too much. I felt guilty for enjoying the taste of the kai, for eating in general. Compared to the feeling of pride when I had almost eaten the entire meal. I felt proud of myself for getting so far, it was an achievement, especially for the amount of guilt and hate my mind was creating. Looking at these two side by side was interesting in that way, the contrast of feelings and emotions going on. Because of this, I think they function as a duo as well as when they’re in the sequence of all 5 images.

I also think they function as individual images. number 3, the one on the left functions as an individual image. I can’t really describe why I believe so, but I think it just feels right. A half-eaten meal image compared to what the usual untouched meal images that are usually seen. Especially the half-eaten piece of garlic bread in the box, for some reason I really like the kai being eaten away at but still whole enough to still be seen as still something nice to look at. I also really enjoy the 4th image, the one on the right. The barely any kai left in the bowl and the box but just a small amount is really satisfying to look at. I think either of them could be really interesting as stand-alone images.

I do think I prefer them as a duo rather than separate images, solely because I really enjoy the differences in the feelings I had when taking the left image compared to taking the right image.

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Here are images that didn’t make the cut. These are the images that sit outside of my current interest and do not have as much of a strong relation to the brief of labour I am working with. The labour I chose here was the labour of manual labour, and construction. I thought these images were interesting enough to take and to edit into black and white, but I didn’t really grab interest or gain any sense of “ah, this is the topic I want to continue with.” when working on them. I thought to do this topic because it was the most obvious choice.

The labour of the construction is all around me, living in Auckland Central it’s literally happening everywhere I turn. I also liked the idea of the tiredness it would bring as well doing this labour, as the last bottom image shows. I thought that taking a photo of the worker having a break from their labour would be interesting and I might go off into that form of labour, but I genuinely didn’t find any inspiration from the ideas I was going off on. I still wanted to share these and the images I ended up with though, and from these, I then went on to brainstorm more ideas of labour.

I ended up looking at not physical labour by itself but also looking at emotional labour, mental labour, not so common labours. Labours that maybe aren’t seen as a labour in the eyes of everyone. Thus, I started looking at the labour of eating. Something that I struggle with, and that I do consider a labour, but most don’t. The images below are the ones I ended liking the most from the construction idea that I decided not to continue with.

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Continuing on with my labour of eating, I have taken a sequence of images showing the gradual eating away at my dinner. While the first image looks Instagram-ready, (referring to posts that people upload onto the social media platform of their own kai) the sequence of the food disappearing into the residue takes the images out of that ‘Instagram’ feel. It leans more toward labour of the actual eating away at the kai.

I’ve also chosen to put a word by each image to describe what I was feeling whilst at that stage of consumption. When taking the first image, 1, I was very nervous about starting to eat, also nervous that I wouldn’t be able to stop and that I’d start binge eating after this, cause this meal, is one of my safe foods. A safe food is something that I feel safe eating and that I will eat compared to something else. I’ll get fixated on this food for days, weeks, or months at a time. I felt a sense of gluttony when taking the second image because I had taken quite a few bites of my kai easily and found myself eating very quickly, causing me to feel that sense of binge eating behaviour starting to build up and feeling bloated already. For the third image, 3, I felt guilty. I had already eaten half of my meal and my brain was telling me to stop. I felt guilty for enjoying the taste of the food and for eating it in general. In my fourth image, 4, I felt pride. I had almost eaten an entire meal and that’s an achievement for me, especially for it being an average size portion of doos for someone my weight, age, and height. But once I did finish it, and moved on to take the final image, 5, I felt shame. I was ashamed of myself for eating all of it, for even scraping off a bit of it from the packaging. I felt horrible about myself and was disgusted at myself for doing finishing the kai. But I needed to, for my health, for my brief to in order to complete this labour sequence, and for my journey mentally, in hopes that one day this won’t feel like labour anymore.

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The labour I’ve been looking at is the emotional labour around eating. For me eating is really difficult, I don’t enjoy it and it’s mentally draining for me to do so, even more, to keep my friends and whānau up to date with my eating habits via social media to hold my accountability in eating. I’m currently being assessed at an eating clinic and they suggested that I do this as a means to make sure I at least eat something once a day. 

Because of my people-pleasing tendencies, this would be a great way to keep track of my journey because otherwise, my friends, whānau, and my partner will message me asking where’s the post which then, in turn, makes me feel bad and so I will put some kai together and post about it. Even if it makes me emotionally exhausted in doing so.

Every time I manage to eat something I will take a photo of it with the caption, “eating”, and post it to a private group on my Snapchat. I’ve been doing this since the start of April and have collected all my submissions to the Snapchat story since this brief started. I’ve managed to put together a completely filled-up A3 page of images of proof that I’ve eaten and uploaded to my private story on Snapchat. 

Snapchat is an ‘informal’ device, not commonly used in photography because you can’t really control any of the photographic settings and the images. But, that doesn’t make it less useful as an art-making tool, but rather that it was an interesting way of making art that not many would even consider using. Once put into collated and all of the images sized into rows onto photoshop, then the “low quality” Snapchat images begin to look like something that could be considered “art.”

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As you can see above on the top right image are just some of the emotions of the labour I have when doing these entries. The whole process is overwhelming and difficult but I keep with it to keep my friends, whānau, and partner less worried. Also to try and heal from my bad eating habits of just not eating in general.

I wanted my exhibition to be about Karangahape Rd and what I believe it is, which is a bright, colourful, LGBTQIA+ safe, amazing, political, and comforting place where I feel at home and where all my friends and volunteering are. From the pride flag walkway, the drag scene, the greens party office for local mp, Chlöe Swarbrick, to the music shops, cannabis, and other political stances, the vibrant people. I wanted to try and capture all of that. Instead of the way some people view it as “k road, the road with strippers, drugs and homeless people.”

The photos are all on my exhibition for this

Interviewing 6 objects

• Polar Bear (Baby Squish)
• Bent Fork
• Winnie the Pooh Hoodie 
• Dream Catcher
• St Cuthbert’s College Leavers Ring
• Stim Toy

Polar Bear

Just as his name applies, and yes the Polar Bear, Baby Squish uses he/him pronouns, he is very squishy. Baby Squish is also quite soft to touch and has slightly different textures to his bean toes and eyes. He also has a very comforting smell, it’s warm and reminds me of bed. Baby Squish also cannot sit up ‘normally’ and when sitting down naturally one leg plops up and he leans to the side. He also has some discolouration to him, “Used to be white.” he says, and continues, “But since I get cuddled with every day, I’ve lost my white glow and instead wear a cream greyish colour.

Bent Fork 

“I may look damaged and broken, but my owner only eats with me and refuses to eat with any other fork or utensil in the kitchen.” Bent fork then goes on to tell us about the water stains on their body. “The water at WSA is god knows what, but I always seem to have water marks on myself. Even when my owner uses dish soap and scrubs at me!” Bent fork is very shiny and cold to the touch, and if you move your head around the lighting you can see all the little scratches on them and fingerprints. This fork is special to the owner, Bent Fork tells us, “I bring a sense of comfort to my owner so that they can eat, which is important.”

Winnie the Pooh Hoodie

This Winnie the Pooh hoodie was originally owned by someone else but was given to their current owner as a gift. The hoodie was given to the current owner’s girlfriend making this hoodie very special. They used to be fluffy but from age they have become more fuzzy and worn down. The balls that are attached to their heckline have become ratted and matted

Dream Catcher

“I hold all the nightmares and catch all the good dreams for my owner. ” We asked the dreamcatcher about their yellow and purple threading and their beads, and feathers and they told us that they have those to allure the dreams to them, like as a flower is bright and colourful so that the bees will pollinate it.

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St Cuthberts’s College Leavers Ring

The ‘By Love Serve’ 2020 engraved ring has significant importance to it’s wearer. A school leavers ring from being at St Cuthbert’s College for 7 years and representing their journey with it. The way it shines from being polished to perfection and the little scratch marks from being worn every single day since getting it.

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STIM Toy

We couldn’t really tell what the STIM toy was but with their bendy, stretchy, elastic exterior and their marble on the inside we can see how stimulating it would be to play with from it’s owner. The bright green also makes for visual stimulation. The STIM toy told us about how they get taken to every class, every doctor’s appointment and so on and so forth because of their small size and usefulness.

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Taking another waddle and walk into the city, we were tasked to act as detectives and take images of things that brought up questions. Why? Whos? What? How? etc…

I found little details of areas I walk past every single day and found graffiti, different textures, and drains that looked like secret tunnels to somewhere I noted stood out for me. How was that basket made, what does it usually hold in it? Or the penguin graffiti: how did I not notice it, why is it a fishing rod with a penguin, is it even a penguin? Or the drain: what’s inside of it, where does it lead to, why does it seem so mysterious?

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In the first week and the second week for one lesson we got to go into WE and into their Darkroom space. I learned how to develop and take photos using pinhole photography. Using a paint bucket with a tiny pinhole drilled into it we put in special light sensitive paper and covered the pinhole and uncovered it and recovered it again to take a photo.

I had used pinhole cameras like the paint buckets before in high school, but only a few times and not as fully as we did them in our brief. I really like that we got to keep going in to work with the darkroom and how long we got to play around with the exposure timing.

My first photo from doing the pinhole went really well, almost perfect. I did it for around 40 seconds even though we were supposed to do it for 1 minute. But since my pinhole was bigger than most of the other cameras I decided to make the exposure time shorter. I followed that same mindset with my other photos and apart from when Auckland weather was being terrible and changing every 5 seconds.

I went on a walk that I usually make at least 3 or 4 times a week from WSA to Karangahape Road and back. I shifted my body and the camera along with low to the ground as it’s quite a flat walk with not many high spaces for me to get up high. It had just rained a bit so the ground, and the cool air smelt like rain and fresh icy weather. I could also hear everyone walking around me, some people talking on the phone or to one another, cars honking at each other and driving past the occasional pedestrian lights buzzer, and my own footsteps. The sensations I felt were noise overload so I ended up putting my headphones on. I also felt the textures of the ground and the wetness of it from being so low down to the ground. Overall it was really interesting doing my walk with the perspective of being very small, I got some weird looks but it was fun seeing how big everything looked. Especially the double-decker buses that drove past, they looked giant!

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My partner and I flipped a coin and made a decision based on heads or tails to go left or right. (or straight ahead) Whenever we go to a point in our path where we had to cross the street or turn a corner etc. We decided that Heads was Left (or straight) and that Tails was Right. We ended up going along down to Elam, then Down Symonds St, past Munchie Mart UoA Library area, then to Albert Park, and past the Art Gallery back up to AUT WM.