Sigrún Gyða Sveinsdóttir

Sigrún Gyða Sveinsdóttir
BA Fine Art 2017
sigrungyda.com

A women sees another woman on the street. She wonders if she considers herself to be a sculpture. A woman-sculpture, whether admired by those that lay eyes on her—or ignored, as the concrete road has more appeal.
Imagine that you’re sitting in a room full of people. The crowd buzzes with energy. The show is over. Competitors gather on the stage and bow to the audience.

They try to bury their heads into the floor, like ostriches trapped in a zoo. You want nothing more than to get home. You never really wanted to go anyway. It was the most boring show you’ve ever seen. Still, you applauded and cheered, even during the encore.

We all want a pat on the back—to be praised for things that we do well. A hit of dopamine turns into a smile, the sun is shining, everything is good. But all of a sudden rain pours down, the sky turns grey and we can’t find the back pat we so desperately want. Perhaps it’s that our new profile pic only got 10 likes (while the last one got 89).

About a year and a half ago I changed my profile picture on Facebook. The new picture showed myself on holiday, standing in a red subway tunnel. I was sipping red juice from a plastic cup and wore a red anorak. My mom took it. The picture was liked 244 times. Since then, I have never received so many likes on any picture I have posted on social media, and I have no idea why it got so many likes. I do know that people tend to like pictures that already have a lot of likes. We tend to just do what we see others do. We don’t trust our guts. I like to be liked. It gives me a sense of approval, even though I know it doesn’t represent my personal worth. I shouldn’t care about what other people think of me. Just need to breathe. To hell with it, I’m turning myself into a sculpture.
A singing-sculpture runs into a muscle-sculpture. Hand in hand they walk into the night.