Identiparts (1998-2000)

Identiparts was an installation work that consisted of one hundred facial features parts (mouths, noses and eyelids), packaged as cosmetics and labelled according to outdated anthropological racial categories of ‘Caucasoid, Negroid and Mongoloid’ to imply that even racial identity can be considered a mutable state, as a response to developments in the cosmetics industry and the body to be considered an object of consumption.

The work placed ‘race’ into a contemporary social context by using race to categorise these faux cosmetic products. The artwork critiqued and commented on how easily our physical identities are able to be altered. The process of researching, making and exhibiting these works made me realise that there is a racial heirarchy in the standards of beauty, as I began to navigate the preference for ‘western’ features in the makeup and cosmetic surgery world.

The original work was developed as an object based installation accompanied by an advertising campaign. As the project developed, the work was shown in different sites and contexts. For documentation, the project was placed into the department store site of Myers, Sydney (1998) to give the work a cosmetics context. In King Street Chemist, Newtown, NSW Identiparts was part the Walk in The Streets Art Festival (1999). These early experiments in situ, led to my interest in public and site specific art practices and it's relationship to various audiences.

This project was shown in:

  • Biomorphs, Gallery 4A, Sydney (1999) exploring interfaces between the body and technology, curated by Tiffany Lee Shoy

  • This Way Up (1999) Object Galleries, Sydney, a National Exhibition of Top Art and Design graduates in Australia

  • Body Art (2000), The Australian Museum, touring exhibition various cultural uses of the body as art

  • Dialogo: The Other, (2000) Chiesa Santa Maria Teresa dei Maschi, Bari, Italy, an exhibition of contemporary Chinese art exhibition, 2000

  • Mask vs. Face (2001) curated by Zhang Zhaohui, Red Gate Gallery, Beijing, China.

  • Ping Yao Photography Festival (2002), curated by Shu Yang, Ping Yao, China

Media:

  • Art Face Value, Carol Lu, That’s Beijing, 2002

  • Oyster Magazine, 1999