#traditional beauty

Once the plaster had set within the shoe, I tried to retrive it, however in this case, the right court shoe actually snapped along with the plaster interior. At first I thought it was useless, however when I cleaned up the plaster, smoothing it, it reminded me of the resin blocks found in pointe ballet shoes. Also the exaggerated and broken arch of the foot connected perfectly to the ideas of foot binding.

For my research I looked into other cultures and their traditions for beauty. After researching tight-lacing and exploring western societies views on beauty I wanted to look more in depth into other forms of binding of the body. One that really inspired me to look further into binding was the Golden Lotus Foot (Chinese foot binding). After watching documentaries on YouTube I began looking into how the beautiful silks and fabrics looked outside of that culture. It led me to look into ballet. There were instant similarities, such as the silks, the wrapping styles, the bound feet for support and structure. And coincidentally, it is almost as damaging as lotus foot and externally, it appears to be beautiful, an art of sorts. Ballet: the beauty of performance and translation of narrative into an act, practiced for centuries.