Detail view, Before/After, 2013
The installation Before/After consists of an extensive collection of self-portraits made by individuals documenting their workout progress. Sourced from the internet, these printed images show people posing to present their physical changes over time, always meticulously accompanied by captions stating the exact date and their current body weight in kilograms.
Installation view at CACT Centre of Contemporary Art, 2013
By displaying these intimate yet highly public documents as a dense mural, the work humorously, and at times sarcastically, examines the extreme mutations to which people subject their bodies in an attempt to be accepted by the aesthetic tribe of the internet crowd.
The work specifically illuminates the role of online forums that offer platforms to continuously exchange and compare individual training statuses. Within these digital ecosystems, sports and fitness practices are reframed not merely as activities for health, but as a form of body modification—fueled by the pressure to optimize the self and publicly document the ongoing physical transformation.