Défiguration-Refiguration, Self-hybridation précolombienne n°10

ORLAN has turned her body into the medium of her art, using a series of surgical procedures and performances to construct the fantastical, almost divine artificiality of her appearance. In the “Self-hybridations” series, which began in 1998, these transformations are accompanied by technological modifications that blend her new kind of beauty into the aesthetic norms of non-Western civilizations. The works in these series perfectly illustrate the political issues that the contemporary body—particularly the female body—has gradually come to bear.