Silver Tableaux: Memoir Vivant

Caitlin Mary Margarett Sørensdatter

doi:10.33303/gpsv6n1-2a135

Authors

Caitlin Mary Margarett Sørensdatter University of Wisconsin-Madison

Keywords:

pro-ana, memoir, performance studies, self-starvation, recovery, anorexia nervosa, anorexia, eating disorders, disordered eating, managing illness

Abstract

Drawing on personal experience in performative memoir practice, Caitlin Mary Margarett Sørensdatter discusses the redefinition of the self in the midst of anorectic suffering. While asserting that social media can be an extension of memoir development, she compares highly visible micro-celebrities who represent different aspects of the public's consumption of anorectic stories—the unrecoverable and the recovered. Refuting the damaging simplification of recovery narratives, this essay explores the inherent value of stories emerging from the crossroads of anorectic experience.

Author Biography

Caitlin Mary Margarett Sørensdatter, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Caitlin Mary Margarett Sørensdatter is an American artist working in performance and contemporary craft. Through the combination of antiques and handmade objects, CMM generates memoir and autotheory-based work that aims to invoke apparitions; that which cannot be recovered or fully known. By evoking nostalgia and solastalgia, her cyclical, symmetrical, and hyper-repetitive performative projects demand the analysis of our ties to place, ancestry, and future as we brace for the full impact of our climate crisis. She holds an MFA from University of Wisconsin-Madison in 4D, and a BFA in performance art and BA in art history from University of Northern Iowa.

Her work has been shown throughout the Midwest; at 2022’s Fringe Arts Bath festival in Bath, England; at 2021’s Miami Art Week as a part of the PERFORMANCE IS ALIVE / Satellite Show that runs concurrent with Art Basel Miami; at Louisiana State University for the 2019 Queeramics Symposium; in Ceramics Monthly; Emergency Index Vol. 8 and Vol. 9; and Aesthetica Magazine.

References

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Cooney, Eugenia . “I’m Back.” YouTube. July 19, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIpDihSWPF0

Doyle, Glennon. Love Warrior. Flatiron Books, 2016.

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Fournier, Lauren. “Introduction: Autotheory as Feminist Practice: History, Theory, Art, Life.” Autotheory as Feminist Practice in Art, Writing, and Criticism, MIT Press, 2022, pp. 14–15. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/13573.001.0001

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Love Eugenia Cooney. “Eugenia Cooney (Before & After).” YouTube. December 18, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhdAy1_cPd4

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Love Eugenia Cooney. “Eugenia Cooney Emotional Over Always Being Harassed About Her Weight & Health Twitch July 15, 2021.” YouTube. July 16, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDO1-GqFVh8&t=269s

Love Eugenia Cooney. “Eugenia Cooney's New Bikini (8–29–22).” YouTube. August 29, 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG09cgWpi08

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Love Eugenia Cooney. “Eugenia Cooney Shows Her Avril Lavigne Collection Plaid Crop Top & Skirt YouTube January 22, 2023.” YouTube. January 22, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LamC8h-6xo

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Swarte, Puck. “There’s Nothing I Can Do”: Subcultural micro-celebrity, transgressive bodies and the discursive practices on YouTube. 2018. Utrecht University, MA thesis.

Silver Tableaux: Memoir Vivant

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Author Biography

Caitlin Mary Margarett Sørensdatter, University of Wisconsin-Madison

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