Artist Conversation #5

Micol Hebron

Micol Hebron is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice includes studio work, curating, writing, social media, crowd-sourcing, teaching, public-speaking, and both individual and collaborative projects. Hebron is an Associate Professor of Art at Chapman University; the founder/director of The Situation Room resource space for the creative community; the Gallery Tally Poster Project about gender equity in contemporary galleries; and the Digital Pasty/Gender Equity initiative for the internet. She uses her body as a medium to display her art through photographs and installations. She expresses her work through pedagogy, epistemology, evolutionary biology, social media, collectivity, and affect theory pieces as well as the role of the human’s body in society, especially the female anatomy.

When Hebron visited out classroom, she dove straight into her ongoing projects. The projects she showed us circulated around the topic of the female body in society. She explained to us how the female nipple is censored in media while the male nipple is not. Through this finding, she decided to push the boundaries that social media has put on the female anatomy. She pushed boundaries by replacing female nipples with male nipples because she explained that the male nipple is more accepting to the public and social media and that the female nipple is considered nudity and inappropriate. In every single topless picture and other pieces, she replaced her own nipples with a male’s or if it wasn’t her body, she would find ways to take normal things and incorporate the male nipple. As another statement to this issue, she also took the opportunity to pose topless infront of any monument she encounters throughout her travels. Through these pieces, she pushes boundaries and performs boldness in each of them. It makes the viewer uncomfortable but her purpose is to normalize the female anatomy and make us look at it as art instead of it being inappropriate.

As Hebron was showing her pieces, she explained her purpose about each piece. When she was replacing female nipple with male nipples, she was trying to prove a valid point about the inequality of human bodies between male and female. At first I thought it was her trying to be funny but the more pieces I saw, I understood her reasoning behind her pieces. By posting male nipples in front of female nipples, she is making a bold statement and heavily convincing the viewer that the female anatomy is just as normal as the male anatomy. Through these topless pieces, Hebron was also trying to show us the feminist side in her. She wanted to show us how insecure she was with her body, but the more nude pictures she took, the more comfortable and confident she became. She wanted to normalize the female body and admire it. She wanted to show that the female body can be just as accepting as the male body to society and in media.

When I was hearing her testimony, I felt empowered with her work. Her work is bold and daring to the public eye, but behind each piece is a powerful meaning. She dives into topics that are often hidden by society. Her pieces shine light to topics that are often seen as taboo, but through her works, she attempts to normalize them. I admire the work she puts out and I believe that her work resonates in my personal life.