Body’s strategies of activism in art: fat studies, fat activism and the grotesque

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of the relationship between the grotesque and activism encompassing corpulence, focusing on the artworks of Elisa Queiroz and Fernanda Magalhães developed at the end of the last century. The objective is to recognize the political power of these projects that dialogue with intersectional issues in contemporary art, through heterogeneity, and nonconformity. This investigation of the visual arts aligns with gender, body, performative studies, and feminist criticism. Through the findings, it becomes possible to recognize the role that corporeity plays in overcoming prejudices and subverting dominant discourses. However, they reveal how the visual arts are (still) left aside by movements to represent the fat body.