The theme of consumption is one that preoccupies me frequently, particularly in relation to the aesthetic mechanisms of a patriarchal consumer society. Most products in contemporary culture rely on the sexualized female body to sell desire, turning women into objects to be consumed visually, emotionally, and economically.

In Free Sugar Objects, lollipops shaped like muscular, idealized men were offered for free, and visitors were invited to literally consume them during the exhibition. Some participants struggled with the act. ("One can’t help but wonder whether female-shaped lollipops would have been easier to stomach.") This hesitation reveals a deep asymmetry: we are conditioned to consume the female body constantly, often without conscious awareness, while the male body is rarely subjected to the same objectifying gaze. Here, the roles are inverted—the viewer becomes a consumer, confronting the male body as a site of consumption, and, in doing so, is forced to reflect on their complicity in a patriarchal system that commodifies women.

This work is part of a series exploring the body as simultaneously exposed and consumed—reduced to function, yet resilient in its vulnerability. It is a quiet but persistent rebellion against patriarchal vulgarization, an attempt to restore authenticity, complexity, and tenderness to the body. Within this inversion, the body becomes a terrain of conflict between intimacy and consumption, between lived experience and imposed modes of viewing, bearing witness to the power and responsibility of the gaze, and challenging entrenched societal norms around gender and desire.