About the Project
Ill Fitted (2014) is a collaborative piece by Crystal Pearl Molinary and myself that is inspired by the girdle and body-shaping underwear advertisements targeted to women that are ubiquitous in Miami, Florida’s working-class Latinx neighborhoods. Our stiff and affected poses in the piece mimic the images found in “faja” (girdle) circulars and are arranged in a grid composition to generate an echoing pattern. The project pokes fun at the flagrant gender politics of advertisements, which promise corporeal perfection via butt padding and waist cinching, while also highlighting the odd poetry of their aesthetics. We gave it the title Ill Fitted as a way to play upon the notions of misfit and unacceptability we have been subjected to for how we present our bodies, in addition to the slang meaning of “ill” as cool or dope. Working-class Latinas create art with their bodies even within the most rigid social structures—we exceed them.