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Lipstick Bar

Lipstick Bar approaches the issues of exploiting non-human animals to create zooceuticals by utilizing absurdity and dark satire. In the cosmetic industry, animal products are key ingredients used in creating perfume, face lotion, nail polish, eye cream, foundation, eyeshadow, blush, bronzer, eyeliner, mascara, lipstick, and so on.  Lipstick Bar is a multimedia installation that transforms the space into a pseudo-cosmetic retail display, where the viewer is confronted with lipsticks that display animal ingredients. Each animal ingredient is presented on sculptural representations of the animal from which the product is derived; thus, the animal holds its own body or bodily product. The sculptural animal stands are large for the lipsticks they present to the viewer. They are painted to match the color of the walls, emphasizing their forms while reducing the sculptural animal stands to innocuous fixtures in the retail space. The lipsticks are not clearly labeled, and the viewer must play an internal guessing game to determine the animal product they are looking at. This ambiguity mirrors the same uncertainty a consumer experiences when ingredients are not clearly labeled or presented on the ingredient lists under inconspicuous names.

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