Rachel Herrick: Tracking the Wild Obeast

by NowPublic Staff | June 1, 2011 at 03:19 pm

245 views | 0 Recommendations | 0 comments

Hunting the Obeast with Rachel Herrick

When you see the old-school museum-style installation "Museum for Obeast Conservation Studies", your initial reaction may be one of anger: the work includes a life-sized taxidermy-style model of an obese young woman. This is Maine College of Art (MECA) grad student Rachel Herrick's final project, and it's part social commentary, part self-portrait.

Aside from a real-life obeast "taxidermy" installation, Herrick's project has an online component as well: obeasts.org.

Rachel Herrick herself is both the male and female obeast (the female wears glasses, you see), filmed in the style of DIY nature videos. Herrick is exploring the connection that people make between weight and intelligence (i.e. the premise of every Chris Farley film).

The video elements of the Obeast project are on YouTube; we're including them below. This item came to our attention via Jezebel, though it's only a matter of time before it catches on. Our prediction: someone will get offended, and the Obeast story will be reported with the terms "is causing controversy".