Project Secret Selfie empowers women through selfie art

What goes through your head when you see yourself naked in the mirror? Despite the wider acceptance of all types of bodies becoming more prevalent in mainstream media, anxiety levels about our image are higher than ever. Instagram alone allows us to silently compare, rank and obsess over people we have never met.

A recent survey by Make Your Switch found that 44% of the women questioned were more concerned with their weight and body image than they were with their health. The rise in body shaming is parallel to the rise of social media.

Profiles are essentially your personal brand, no matter how much effort or thought you put into curating a persona on that platform. Everyone has probably felt the same anxiety when it comes to posting something and waiting or checking the reaction from your “followers” – but what would you post if it was anonymous? Would you make bolder, more confident choices with what you post?

This is where an initiative like Project Secret Selfie comes in. It allows women to feel empowered within themselves but also share the message that all body types are beautiful. Georgia Small, a Melbourne based artist, has created this project that encourages people to submit personal selfies that they wouldn’t otherwise share and transforms them into art. The project allows people to be comfortable in their own skin and has created an uplifting sense of community within those who follow and contribute to the project.

I decided to interview Georgia Small to find out more about her project.

How did you come up with the idea for The Secret Selfie project?

The idea came from an experiment I did on myself. I found an old selfie on myself in underwear from last year where I remember feeling like I looked awful, and looking back in hindsight I thought I looked pretty good! Hindsight is a wonderful thing and I suppose this is the kind of advice our mothers are always telling us. I ended up drawing the selfie on Illustrator and removing the head because I didn’t want people to know it was me. I was so scared putting it online, I felt naked even though it was just colours on a page. It was liberating and kind of exciting. Some weeks later I met a boy who I fell instantly in love with, who told me I was like art. I wanted this feeling to last forever. But more importantly, I wanted to share this feeling with other people.

So the two kind of combined together and created Project Secret Selfie; it was a marriage of art experimentation and love.

You’ve marketed your art through social media, do you think that that’s because it’s one of the easiest platforms to gain a global audience?

Absolutely. In all honestly, I hate social media – predominantly because I use it in a negative way to compare myself to other girls and hate myself more and more. I recognise this within myself and yet seem incapable of stopping. Learning to use Instagram as a positive platform to promote art and body image (two aspects that control my life) was a huge breakthrough for me. The reach I gained through my Secret Selfie project was just an example of how amazing social media is for spreading your audience. My art Instagram had a handful of followers, all of whom were my friends supporting me. Once I came up with my Secret Selfie project and gained attention in the media my reach just kept expanding. I gained about 2,000 followers in 5 months – and although in the scheme of other Instagrammers out there this may seem insignificant, this means a huge deal to me. The fact that 2,000 people in the world like and have chosen to follow artwork that I produce is something I never foresaw. I only ever have produced art for myself, and it is truly a miracle that other people are now interested in that too!

I think we can no longer brush off social media as something silly that we shouldn’t let affect us. It is what we do now, it is no longer a side thought or a new platform. It is established, it is real. It’s okay to be upset by what you see there – I am all the time. I used to get annoyed at myself, and repress feelings about it, condemning myself to being ‘stupid’ and saying ‘it’s just Instagram’ but I feel now that it is absolutely a legitimate reason for feelings.

All the stats say that social media is a primary cause of anxiety about body image in young people – Did these general feelings factor into your Project Secret Selfie, as it is essentially promoting the antithesis of that?

Definitely. Personally, I had body image issues before Instagram and social media were what they are today. Thus, social media has heightened something I was already susceptible to into something that is at times, unbearable. The project is something very personal to me, I basically tried to collect all my feelings towards my body and mold them into art as I believe that art is encompassing of all beauty types in a way that social media is not. Art sees the beauty in everything. Art sees the beauty in the mundane. Social media sees the beauty in a very specific, calculated formula.

What do people write in their emails to you? Are they excited, nervous etc?

Surprisingly they are almost always excited. The bravery amazed me and made me feel so warm. There were many times that girls admitted about their body dysmorphia or eating disorders and I always made special effort to reply back with long messages. My favourite times were when girls requested they be anonymous, and then once I had created the art and posted it online, they would write back saying they wanted to be tagged because they loved it so much! That’s dope. That makes me feel special because I made them feel good.

As part of being secret, you’ve not included their faces/heads. Is this because even a blurred face/head/hair is still the most identifiable part of someone’s body?

Okay this is weird and something I noticed recently but, I only ever draw heads on their own, or bodies without heads. I am sure Freud would have a lot to say about this.

The idea is that it’s kind of anonymous. It’s about seeing yourself as art, and not as something to be objectified. By not drawing in faces I feel like it’s a lot easier for girls to be confident as there’s kind of an element of disconnect. I guess it also is an attempt to separate your mind from your body, to allow yourself to see your body as a beautiful creation and not let your head get in the way of positive thoughts.

Where you inspired by any other projects which are constructed on the basis of people sending in photos etc?

Not really. I genuinely only wanted to work with more material, not just my own body. I asked my friends all to send me photos and I thought that would be the end of it. Within an hour of posting that I wanted submissions, I had emails from randoms. I was totally taken aback and overjoyed! It just kept rolling from there!

In terms of art, and your strand of art, are there similarities and differences in those places? Have you liked/taken influence from one more than the others?

Growing up in Asia there was definitely elements of Chinese and Japanese art that infiltrated my work when I was younger. It was at school that I fell in love with ink work, and using pen has become my most comfortable medium. However, it was only really moving to Melbourne 9 months ago that I began to develop my own style. Prior to the move, living in Durham, London and Singapore I had always been drawing, but copying. I find copying art very therapeutic as I am easily frustrated when work doesn’t come out how I imagined, so I find it easier to copy work that has already been made. But there was something about the creativity in Melbourne that really sparked something inside me. I suddenly found myself producing artwork entirely created by my own brain. I couldn’t stop drawing. I stayed in on Friday nights drawing and drawing. I suddenly felt confident in my style and what I was producing.

Do you think you’ve found your stride in terms of art, with the style of designs your currently doing?

Not really. It’s weird. I can’t explain it but I still don’t like making art on the computer. It’s all very new to me, and it still doesn’t feel really like art. I still prefer drawing with pen, and painting with paints. I find this more relaxing and like an escape. I like to hideaway and paint and draw for hours sprawled across my floor drinking coffee, making a mess. This to me is real art. Sitting in front of the computer for hours makes me feel claustrophobic, whereas drawing makes me feel free. Does that make sense? I don’t know. I started to post my pen drawings on my account and was surprised at how much attention they got too! I kind of thought veering away from the selfie project would disinterest people but I feel like my followers have stuck by me with whatever art I choose to produce which is so dope.

To see more of Georgia Small’s work, please visit her Instagram account @geesmall.art and her Facebook.