YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT, 2024

YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT takes class-based stereotypes and literally throws them back into the face. This series of self-portraits brings a light-hearted, satirical reflection of the classist typecasting I experienced and witnessed as an Organiser in the Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union – a collective of outspoken people living in poverty advocating for welfare reform. 

It was a reoccurring narrative thrown towards me that anyone experiencing financial hardship is making their situation more difficult by not buying affordable, easy-to-cook meals like pastas, noodles and sliced bread that made every cent count. To some, poverty and hunger are seen as a personal choice that is caused by poor decision-making rather than poor policymaking.

My professional skills and artistic process come together in YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT to expose an underlying challenge to the experience of poverty: by wearing the unsatisfying meals that helped me starve off hunger growing up, the viewer is invited to ask: “would I be able to live like this?”

Displayed at RMIT University on June 13, 2024 as part of the VE Photography & Digital Imaging Mid-Year Exhibition.