The Body ‘identity politics

The Body

While the body has been a central concept to art and design practices for millennia, it is in the postmodern period (roughly 1960 - 1990s-2000) that artists and designers have turned a spotlight on the body to express issues relating to identity, especially identity defined in terms of race, ethnicity, gender or sexuality. Much of this effort has been undertaken in order to validate and empower groups who have historically been underrepresented not only in the mainstream art world, but the world in general. In this process we use the term identity politics, which refers to the beliefs and activities of practitioners who target racism, sexism and other forms of prejudice and draw attention to issues of cultural diversity, social rights and economic parity.

1. Identity is formed within a complex matrix of many variables, including gender, sexuality, ethnicity, class, religion, community and nation.

2. Broad generalised or stereotyped interpretations of group identity can be counterproductive and are called essentialism. This term is used when “claims about a group’s identity are based on the notion that the shared qualities are natural or based on biology” (Robertson & McDaniel 2010, p. 46). Notions of diversity contrast with essentialism. Diversity accounts for the complex variables (class, religion, gender, ethnicity etc.) within any group that contribute to the construction of our identity.

3. Factors influencing societal changes in the way we view ourselves include: social political scientific changes including rapid technological change, victories for feminist and civil rights causes, the rising world influence of societies beyond Europe and the Unites States, globalisation of economic systems, ever-increasing speed of information transfer, and the influence of feminist, postmodern and postcolonial theories on a range of intellectual and cultural arenas.

4. There has been a deep implicit connection between art and identity throughout the Western tradition of art history. The Portrait and self-portrait are two genres that demonstrate this enduring tradition.
   
5. Art practices of the 1960s and 1970s that used the body as material to contest/critique/understand issues relating to identity came to be known as Body Art. This was particularly strong in Performance Art of the 1960s and 1970s.

6. What we know of our bodies ‘nature’ is available to us only through the various ideologies that help construct our understanding of the world and our place in it

1. Chris Burden TV Hi-jack 1972

1. Ai WeiWei Study in Perspective – Tiananmen Square, 1995-2003, Gelatin Silver Print.

Michiko Nitta and Michael Burton The Algaculture Symbiosis Suit, 2010-