Beautiful Garbage, an exhibit by NEIU student Megan Pigoni, addresses the problem of the media providing “harmful conventions” to women that she says, “weigh heavily upon our self-esteem and confidence.” Pigoni displays a horrifyingly tragic vogue scene where a mannequin suffocates under a pile of women’s magazines. Depicting the compulsion women have to perfect themselves, the dying mannequin laying on the floor reaches its right hand up towards a floating Cosmopolitan magazine as a pink colored blow dryer, symbolizing a gun, lies beside the mannequin’s other hand. The floor around the mannequin is scripted with the words, “She’s come undone.”
Pigoni depicts the raw reality of a woman’s insatiable desire to conform to society’s view of femininity. Representative of feminine culture, lipsticks are scattered around the exhibit room while the words, “I am beautiful” are chaotically strewn across the walls. Additionally, in one of Pigoni’s graphic designs, she portrays herself as a distraught pre-plastic surgery patient while scores of black dashes and lines mark her body in preparation for surgical incisions. In the poster, she holds up the pink blow dryer “gun” to her head. This picture is a scary reminder of the extreme measures women take to idealize their bodies. Interestingly, Beautiful Garbage seizes many in a deceptive test of vanity. A decorative pink mirror staged in a corner of the exhibit catches people continually scrutinizing their appearance in its reflection. This attention-grabbing decorative piece secretly exposes how many of us are inadvertently absorbed by our appearance.
Pigoni’s showcase cleverly accentuates society’s crisis with superficiality and vanity. Using stereotypically feminine objects and colors draws audiences into a Barbie world, so to speak. It gives light to women’s aspirations to grow into the media’s chosen definition of femininity.