Date post: | 27-Jul-2015 |
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Beauty Aids in Western Culture
Beauty Aids are products or services that claim to alter one's physical appearance, for better or worse, for the sake of beautification.
In Western culture, believing in an ideal
beauty causes unwarranted harm to a
person's mental and physical health.
The floors throughout this exhibit will
be a light wood laminate (as pictured
below) in order to keep the visitors
concentrating on what is around them
instead of what they are walking on.
The main walls throughout this exhibition
will be different shades of blue with white
trim. While the entrance to the exhibition
will have bold blue walls, the other sec-
tions of the exhibit will fluctuate in their
shade. Sections with large amounts of
advertisements, photographs, and posters
will have lighter shades, while sections
with interactive activities will be darker.
In the United States, standards
of beauty are constantly chang-
ing. However, some things re-
main true. Tall, thin, fit, and
symmetrical features are consid-
ered the most beautiful. The in-
troduction to the exhibit will in-
troduce visitors to the concept of
ideal beauty in Western culture.
Promoting Racism Thinking of our target audience
(Millennials, Adult Men and Women),
we want to have a color scheme that
best appeals to those groups. Blue and
Red are the typical colors that those
groups prefer (Bogle, 2013), which is
perfect for an exhibition focused on
American Beauty Culture, as well as
our main exhibition colors. Using blue
and white as a simplistic theme for
our main walls, this section feature
red accent walls.
This exhibit will display both advertisements for
products and the products themselves that promote
racist thinking through the encouragement of men
and women to make physical alterations in order to
appear more fair-skinned. Such products include
skin bleaching (pictured to the left) and skin light-
eners (pictured below).
The advertisements pictured
right are for products created
by Madam C.J. Walker.
Considered the first female
self-made millionaire in
America, she developed and
marketed a successful line of
beauty products for black
women. This section will
examine the implications of
her products.
Promoting Sexism
A terrarium of nightshade. Nightshade, a poisonous purple
flower, was used in eye drops by women to dilute pupils to
seem more seductive. There are many side effects of this
plant, including permanent blindness.
This exhibition features a series of
mannequins wearing popular corsets
from throughout the decades (the one
below is from the 1860s). Male girdles
will also be featured, such as the one
pictured to the right.
Because all of the items in this section
of the exhibit address the issues of sex-
ism that are promoted through beauty
aids and beauty products, the accent
colors will all be gender-neutral (white,
yellow, green, etc.).
All of the items in this exhibit relay
important information and thus
they will “work together to support
the intent and goals of the exhibi-
tion” (Chicone and Kissel, 2014, p.
109).
The tools used
for permanent
make-up ap-
plication will
be displayed in
order to show
their mental
and physical
implications.
Promoting Ageism
This section will feature a make-shift cosmetic stand
which will feature bright lighting to emphasize the
unnaturalness of the featured cosmetic products.
There will be three rooms in this section of the
exhibit.
The first room will feature sterile lighting
and white displays. They will also contain light
blue walls in order to increase the bright effect
of lighting but to keep the exhibit cohesive.
The light blue/bright light combination will
also remind visitors unnatural lighting.
The second room will provide visitors with an opportunity to experiment with texture. There will be large scale images of skin damage due to anti-aging creams, large photographs/images of naturally aged skin, and much more. These walls will be a darker shade of blue to facilitate a change in feeling for the viewer from the first room.
The third room mimics an anti-aging center. It will be set up to look comfortable, yet futuristic. The accent colors will be purple and black, while the main walls will be blue and white like the rest of the exhibition. Like the first room, it will have a clinical appearance with bright lighting. There will also be large scale photographs of models who “never age,” and displays featuring content on the huge price tag of hormone replacement therapy/anti-aging and images of the health side effects.
This section will also
feature advertisements
from products that
promote ageism. One
such advertisement, Oil
of Olay (shown above), is
considered one of the
earliest attempts to
develop and market an
anti-aging cream.
Body Dysmorphia This section will feature advertisements,
products, and various photographs of beauty aids that contribute to body
dysmorphia, which is a belief that one’s own body is defective. This section will
include neutral colors as accents, including green, beige, and brown. These warm
tones will be used in order to help visitors
feel more comfortable while observing and participating in potentially emotional ex-
periences. These neutral colors will also provide a nice juxtaposition to the
"unnatural" beauty aids.
The tapeworm diet has been around for
almost 100 years with the idea that only half
the food you eat goes to your stomach and the
rest goes to the tapeworm.
To the left, is a black-lit
photograph of a tapeworm. To
the right, is a poster that displays
the negative side effects of using
steroids. These photographs,
posters, and advertisements will
help introduce visitors to the
absurdity of certain product
uses.
Modification
This section will feature approximately fifty
percent images and fifty percent objects. The images will range from poster-size
charts of procedures, such as facial cosmetic surgery, to drawings of how the surgery is
done and what the goal of the procedure is. These charts will also explain the medical
uses and, more importantly, the lack of
medical reasoning for said procedures.
This section will also include wall-mounted glass cases featuring, in chronological order, specific implant types, such as breast implants or cheek implants. In the case of breast implants, this will run from early materials such as ivory and glass to silicone injections and implants to the saline and silicone gel implants used today. The image to the left shows an opportunity that visitors will have to touch silicone gel that is used in these implants.
Many visitors are likely to feel shocked by this section's inclusion of surgical images and direct links to the body, so a cool color palette (such as pale greens) will be used as accents in order to hopefully "relax the visitors and aid in their concentration" (Bogle, p. 190).
Habits This section will feature a large room split in half. One
side will feature historic ads that advertise that smoking and drinking are healthy habits, while the other side will
feature contemporary ads and editorials showing that smoking and drinking are beautiful habits. The side
focusing on the past will feature yellow and red accent walls. These bold colors will help energize visitors. The
contemporary side will feature lighter colors in order to
draw the visitors’ attention to the various photographs and advertisements displayed.
"Graphics not only convey information—they can also set the tone, create a sense of time and place, decorate, and give pattern and texture to surface. Enlarged patterns, images, photographs, or type (often called "super graphics") convey in-formation, act as decoration, and create atmosphere" (McLean, p.136). Keeping this in mind, this section will focus on graphics to tell the story of the implica-tions that these habits have on the beauty industry and, more importantly, on a person’s physical and mental health.
References
References
Bogel, E. (2013). “Color and Lighting.” Museum Exhibition Planning and Design. Alta Mira Press .
Chicone, S. and R. Kissel. (2013). “Material of the Visual.” Dinosaurs & Dioramas: Creating Natural History Exhibitions.
McLean, K. (2001). “On the Surface: Color, Texture, Graphics, and Materials.” Planning for People In Museum Exhibitions.
Washington, DC: Association of Science-Technology Centers .