Image © Loral Amir and Gigi Ben Artzi
Artists Loral Amir and Gigi Ben Artzi have created a heart wrenchingly beautiful short film Downtown Divas. It is a story of the mistresses of the Russian nights: heroin-addicted sex workers. The women are captured in the studio wearing Louis Vitton, Miu Miu and Alexander Wang. Their bony bodies, dark eyes and lips devoid of any love embody the very image high fashion wants to glorify.
The portraits reveal haunting flashes of the human soul - dreams, memories, feelings - trapped inside these tormented bodies. It makes me question, what even is the difference between these prostitutes and the high fashion models in the end? Are they not both selling their bodies for the pleasure of others? Are they not both completely stripped of happiness, health and hope? Have they not both sold their souls in order to be reduced to a mere image, a body?
It frightens me to see this materialistic view completely infiltrated in every aspect of our lives. Materialism is the leading dogma of our contemporary science and therefore the basis for all observation and philosophy: there is no soul. How utterly meaningless would our existence be if that was true?
But there is life in us that moves beyond any explanation. When the dawn breaks and the first rays of Sun embrace the Earth, even the most materialistic of men falls breathless. Even the heroin whores dream of being held in the arms of someone who sees beyond their outward image, into the depths of their beating heart.
My children will not grow up to adore skeletal bodies and miserable lives. They will not study science and believe the lie. No, they will not worship matter. They will celebrate the mystery of creation. The wonder of the ever spinning electron. The beauty of truth. And the mercy of the Great Unknown.
Watch Downtown Divas: http://vimeo.com/108770583
Most people give up their body and spiritual well-being for money. Not always in the world of fashion or sex trafficking, but in everyday ordinary jobs. As long as money makes the world go round, people are forced to sacrifice themselves to make a living.
ReplyDeleteMost jobs aren't serving human beings as individuals. It's truly a miracle in this world if someone actually gets to only make a living from things that are purely good for them.