Sarah Thomas

This project stemmed from a frustration with coming to terms with the agency (or lack thereof) that a female artist might have over her body and her image. I felt I could not differentiate between my own desires, wants, and needs and those projected upon me; what do I want, and what am I told I should want? How much of my self presentation is a result of what I genuinely am attracted to, and how much is a result of what I am instructed to find attractive, both explicitly and implicitly? For a female-gendered artist, is there any way out of the objectification of the self? Through an engagement with Kristeva’s writings on the abject (that is, the reaction/experience one has when faced with something that is at once both human and nonhuman, like blood or a corpse) and an exploration of the work of multiple contemporary artists and filmmakers, I develop a theory for effective use of the abject within art by women. Ultimately, I argue that the abject is most successful at helping one manage and understand her expectations if she understands it in relationship to the body and the self as opposed to as a singular concept. The abject is not a destination, but it is an important tool.