WHAT YOU EAT TODAY

I started the project because I was curious about the stereotype of lesbians in the eyes of others and wanted to visualize it. Part of the reason is because of my lesbian identity, and part is because of the Looking-glass self theory. According to Charles Horton Cooley (1998), everyone is a mirror to others, reflecting what others have shown, which means that a significant portion of an individual's view of oneself is influenced by others. It is undeniable that many people who upload their photos to social media and wait for approval from others also spend a significant amount of time gathering feedback on how others perceive them. And for this project, I reversed the entire process by converting other people's perceptions of me into photographs.

I enlisted the help of some people who voluntarily chat with me on various social media platforms and asked them to choose an outfit for "me" after a period of chat. My plan was to photograph myself in the outfits they chose. Some people provided links to specific clothing items on shopping websites, while others provided detailed text descriptions and even drew a picture. I basically stick to the plan with a little change.

Because when I put on the first outfit that wasn't what I usually wore, I realized right away that I didn't like the clothes, and I didn't like the scenes the clothes reminded me of. Despite the fact that all participants have a positive and attractive impression of "me," there is a voice in my heart that says, "If you don't like it, why not destroy it?"

As a result, I destroyed something in almost every scene and eventually set fire to all of the clothes. After all, the fictional images that others conjured up of me are not the real me. I have no desire to be someone else since I rather to think about a more important question which occurs every day: What should I eat today?

Reference: Cooley, C. H., & Schubert, H.-J. (1998). On self and social organization. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.