The Weight of Shame

This thesis performance lasted eleven weeks. During that time, the artist lost as much weight as possible—eighteen kilograms—and carried it with her throughout the entire process. Before beginning, she signed a contract: a document that established the rules of the performance, its duration, and her commitments. An act of responsibility toward her own body and of legitimizing the performance in her own eyes. The signature was not a formality. It was the first gesture of the piece.

The physical device was a vest constructed by the artist from a cloth fruit bag, designed to hold stones placed in stockings—a material with enough elasticity to move with the body's natural ups and downs and minimize physical damage. It didn't work perfectly: despite the precautions, the artist suffered neck injuries. Each time she lost a kilogram, she added a bag of stones to the vest. The body became lighter. The vest, heavier. For eleven weeks, both processes occurred in parallel and in opposite directions.

Brené Brown distinguishes between guilt and shame as follows: guilt is “I did something wrong,” shame is “I am something wrong.” Guilt refers to an act; shame, to one’s entire identity. The artist knew this distinction intimately. She wanted to be thinner—that desire was real and constant—but losing weight generated a guilt that directly clashed with that desire. As if losing weight were a betrayal of something, or someone. As if the fat body, despite all the suffering it had caused her, was more honest than the thin body.

Pierre Bourdieu (1979) proposes that childhood experiences not only shape the mind but also the body: they are inscribed on it as almost involuntary physical dispositions, as a second nature that operates below the level of consciousness. The artist grew up in a body that was constantly pointed out, commented on, and restricted by her mother from childhood. That history didn’t disappear when she lost weight. It remained, embedded, physical. The shame surrounding her body had become so much a part of her that even when she lost weight, she continued to feel her weight. The vest was the embodiment of that: the physicality of something that should have been gone but remained.

The closing performance was also the most intimate. The artist invited her mother to join her. She asked her to take the bags of stones from the vest and put them on herself, thus returning the shame to its source.

Brown, B. (2010). The Gifts of Imperfection. Hazelden Publishing. [Spanish translation: Los dones de la imperfección. Aguilar, 2012.]

Bourdieu, P. (1979). La distinction: Critique sociale du jugement. Éditions de Minuit. [Spanish translation: La distinguía: Criterio y bases sociales del gusto. Taurus, 1988.]