My Own Skin

The fall semester is rapidly coming to a close and I’m beginning to think that the expression “I have a lot on my plate” is the perfect metaphor for me. I’ve begun to feel that my life is little more than a routine of work, gym, and schoolwork with some healthy meals interspersed throughout the day. In recognition of health being a holistic view of self, I decided it was time to make some much needed personal time and do something I’ve felt I hadn’t had time for in months. I decided to invest in some self-love and get my haircut. While waiting for my appointment I opened up the nearest magazine titled “meatpaper”, which seemed like an odd choice for someone that doesn’t eat meat, but I have to say I was intrigued. As I perused the pages I came across a stunning photograph of pigs standing in packed pens with an anomaly in the middle, a bowed naked human back amidst hundreds of sows. At first I thought it must be about empathy and feeling for an animal so close to humans in many ways, but playing slave to our cultures obsession with eating meat. But as I delved into the article it seemed to centre around the idea of skin and how it creates our perceptions of our world. Just then I was pulled away for my appointment but I glanced down at the name of the photographer, Miru Kim, and mentally filled it away thinking I might want to know more about it later.

Two days later I was still thinking about the article and the photographs so I googled the photographers name and came upon her web page with a write up about her exhibition entitled “The Pig That Therefore I am”, a retort to Renee Descartes statement “I think, therefore I am who in the spirit of disassociating the body from the soul, viewed animals as simply “automata or moving machines.”  In essence it almost seemed like a photographic summary of the learning and discussion happening in our Masters cohort. Discovering anew the mind body connection and witnessing and striking parallels between training horses and teaching children I look upon these photographs as a testament to the oneness of body and mind and a holistic vision of health and how we view ourselves and our world.

Miru does not stop there, she takes her work down to the most basic way humans and animals experience their world and bodies, through our skin. She passionately quotes Michel Serres; "The skin, a single tissue with localized concentrations, displays sensitivity. It shivers, expresses, breathes, listens, loves, and lets itself to be loved, receives, refuses, retreats, its hair stands on the end with horror, it is covered with fissures, rashes, and the wounds of the soul." Miru’s work speaks to the shared experience of humans and pigs through skin, but it is her focus on skin itself that I find most powerful about her work. It makes me think of how I experience my own skin and in turn how others perceive it.

How are my experiences in my skin shaped by how I feel about it? If I worry so much about the shape, colour, scars, dimples, or other imperfections how does this change my lived experience and my connection between my senses and my perceptions? If skin is a defining medium for the internal consciousness of the body how do negative perceptions of ones skin interfere with life and health as lived experience?

Miru concludes with the thought, “Nevertheless, at some point in our lives, we must experience the emblematic process of flaying our skin and offering it up for others to see, hear, and feel through art, music, and poetry.” I add teaching to this as well. If we teach authentically we offer up our selves, our perceptions of the world, and our wisdom and experiences learned through our senses. This is shared with those we teach everyday through our voices, our touch, and our appearance. As my term paper continues to unfold in front of me and I think of my perceptions of myself and my own skin, and the perceptions of those I educate I begin to better appreciate and value the idea of my skin as my perfect connection between mind and body, not something that needs to be bettered or changed.

This idea of health as a holistic entity is not something that comes easy for me, or that I see in many of my daily health practices. But I believe there is power in this idea of re approaching health from a humble beginning instead of as a veteran of physical fitness and healthy eating. Humbly I go.