Weight
by Monika Peszek
Docent – Cora
she/her
“Oh my goddesses, wow, I’m not- just wow” was my first reaction to seeing “Weight.” It elicits sadness, exhaustion, and a keen connection between the piece and viewer. It makes you think, it makes you want to cry, and it makes you want to turn away. This piece hit me in three ways: visually, spiritually, and intellectually.
Visually: I see someone who might have once been human, that maybe the weight has changed them from human to a being that can only exist. The weight of their bodies is so heavy, it appears they are on the verge of collapse, of surrendering to the floor without the ability to get up. Their back is curved and head is lowered, as if keeping it up one second longer would take too much energy, too much concentration, too much hope. Their knees are bending with feet planted on the floor, as if it is a last ditch effort to hold the rest of them while standing, as if one weak wind gust would be an invitation to secede in the war of living. Their breasts are drooping, letting gravity taking them to the floor, as if they don’t want them to have any reason to be pert or round, as if they desperately want them to hide in the concave of the person’s curved back. And, finally, there is the actual weight- the rolls, the bulges, the largeness and fatness, the roundness and squishiness, the burden of the heaviness, as if every pound, every kilogram is deepening the person’s resolve to give into the exhaustion of just being. There’s nobody around, nobody to help, and nothing to cushion the fall, only blank space in this piece.
Spiritually: The first time viewing this piece, my stomach clenched and roiled, my back curved, and my muscles tensed; it was almost as if my body was responding to the piece, connecting to this piece. I wanted to keep looking at it and I wanted to turn away at the same time. I was disgusted and I was concerned and all I wanted to do was run very far away and hold this metaphorical person until they wanted to try to straighten again. And, that is the beauty of this piece-it connects you, on a visceral level, to the meaning and the conversation that this piece is trying to tell you.
Intellectually: The symbolism of this piece invites the viewer to secondarily experience the weight that sexual assault has on someone’s body, soul, and mind. I saw the weight that is bringing this person’s body down, down, down in surrender and collapse as the shame, the guilt, the isolation, the feeling of being irrevocably changed. Shame surrounds cells, seeps into pores, and is like a lead in someone’s heart and mind. It makes you want to move slowly because you can’t move any faster and if you did, you would fall into pieces and fear that you could not be picked back up. It makes you feel like you are taking on the weight of the trauma itself, but even more- what does your family think? Your community? The world? For these reasons, along with the physical and spiritual pain of being harmed in this way, it makes sense that sexual assault can take someone from straight backed, head high, and confident stepped to someone who wants to- needs to- hide from the world and from themselves so badly that their body, mind, and soul have been changed to accommodate. It’s just too much weight to hold by themselves. This piece also makes me think that maybe the weight isn’t symbolic, but literal. There’s a study called "Adverse
Childhood Experiences” that says that adults, whom are sexually abused as children, are more at risk for obesity.
The reasons for this are many but the one that stands out to me the most- that I think of the most when I see this piece- is that sometimes trauma survivors hide within themselves and from the world by adding weight. Whether it’s subconscious or conscious, adding weight in a society that devalues, or at the very least ignores, fat or large people, feels safer when your body and the world feels so unsafe because of the trauma. This experience is heartbreakingly and eloquently written by Roxanne Gay in her book, Hunger, for which I had a similar spiritual response than I had to viewing this piece. Regardless of if the weight in this piece is symbolic or if it’s literal, it’s still there and we cannot look away.
So, what would it take? What would it take for the weight of this trauma to be shared with family, friends, society, etc? Or, what would it take for the weight to not be added at all? This piece is an evocative conversation starter in exploring these questions because it invites the viewer to see this pain for what it is, an unbearable weight on our minds, our bodies and our souls.
