Author | Annie Malamet
Chrissy Bulakites describes her current ongoing Flawless Project as being “born out of [experience] as a photographer in the fashion industry.” In simple black and white format, Bulakites creates diptychs. The first image is a straight on, un-retouched photo of Chrissy performing an every day regimen, the second is the same photographed but retouched. Through this format, Chrissy highlights the “smoke and mirrors” the fashion industry uses to perpetuate harmful body image.
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When I first heard the name of this project I immediately thought of Beyonce’s ***Flawless song featuring Nigerian feminist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Chrissy told me the project is actually unrelated to the song, but she thinks the association is a positive one. “Doesn’t everything come from a Beyonce song? She IS the queen, after all. Really though, if people associate the name of the project with her, then that’s totally fine by me.” Even though Chrissy says The Flawless Project is a separate entity, I’m going to choose to consider them within the same scope of radical feminist body acceptance. After all, Bulakites’ photographs literally display an “I woke up like this” attitude.
“I would definitely consider myself a feminist and I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t a motivating factor in this project.”
I asked Chrissy if she would feel comfortable describing this project as “Feminist art.” “I would definitely consider myself a feminist and I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t a motivating factor in this project.” Chrissy told me. “It’s tough, because ‘feminist’ has become such a dirty word in a lot of ways.” I pointed out to Chrissy that while the images definitely perpetuate a feminist agenda in regards to body positivity, she is still an attractive, relatively thin, cisgender white woman. I asked her if she was interested in branching out beyond self-portraiture and including other body types in this series. “The idea was to put myself out there first in order to encourage other people to feel comfortable doing the same. I think my own body was a good starting point.” Chrissy said. She is definitely right. If you want other people to put themselves out there, the best way to start is by making yourself vulnerable. “I want people to realize that even though we all look different, we all feel the same. It’s kind of ridiculous that we’re all walking around feeling needlessly bad about ourselves as a result of all the digitally manipulated images we’re inundated with on a daily basis. That said, I absolutely want to represent all body types, races, and gender identities as I move forward.”
Chrissy is also interested in including men in her project. “I have had a surprising amount of men reach out to me about sharing their struggle with body image,” she says. “This adds an interesting twist because these types of insecurities are typically considered a negative characteristic of females. My point is, I hope The Flawless Project will make women realize that everyone is going through the same thing, even men, and create some sort of common bond that will make people reconsider their approach to feminism. Of course, this sort of message is only going to resonate with people who are already open to feminist ideals. There’s also a message in there to those who aren’t, and that message is: Here I am. I don’t give a fuck if you think I’m pretty.”
I stand behind the format Chrissy is working with as well as the socially aware framework the project is built on. I believe it is still important to be critical of any work you enjoy. I will be very interested to see how this photographer moves forward with the project. Currently, using only self-portraits, the project could easily fall into that trap of becoming a particularly inspiring Tumblr post. Including various body types and genders can only strengthen this work. It will show that the industry can literally manipulate any aspect of a person’s body; for example, smoothing out a woman’s “masculine” features or lightening skin tones. Overall, I think this photographer has a lot of material to work with and I’m excited to see how the project continues.
Check out Chrissy Bulakites’ website.
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View slide show for additional images!
