The Big Society


  • Photographer
    richard ansett
  • Prize
    Honorable Mention
  • Company/Studios
    Richard Ansett
  • Date of Photograph
    2007-8
  • Technical Info
    Digital (unretouched), C-type

All the images in this series are taken in the days leading up to gastric band or colon reduction surgery. The images were taken in the homes of the subjects as records of their bodies ‘before’. The normal instincts, the sense of embarrassment and shame at being seen naked have been lifted by the potential salvation of surgery and the wish for a record of their lives to be compared to the ‘salvation’ following surgery. These subjects are less connected emotionally to their old bodies; they are at this point partly disassociated from the moment and already living their new lives. For an increasing amount of us, our emotional state is expressed through our relationship with food and with some, it inevitably shows. These people have become walking allegories of our own failings and we seem to despise them for it but this is not a freak show or something to be mocked, these subjects exist as a part of ourselves, they are in this moment representing what we could be or are; they are physical representations of our own emotional possibility.”

You can create multiple entries, and pay for them at the same time.
Just go to your History, and select multiple entries that you would like to pay for.