Under and Above

The short film Under and Above (2020) portrays the body landscapes of an obese woman moving underwater and surrounded by plants. It is part of the larger project Nude—Arising from the Ground (2019-2020), furthermore comprising sculpture, installation, a photo series, and a book published by Fw:Books (Miss Cox). The anonymous model assumes alienating shapes and takes on a weightlessness as if set free from gravity. This work, like the entire project, was inspired by a photographic sequence by Eadweard Muybridge in which an obese woman (identified as Miss Cox) can be seen moving from lying down to standing upright (Arising from the Ground, plate 268, 1885). Wessels’ interpretation of this sequence resulted in a versatile and multidimensional study of bodily shape, texture and movement.

Under and Above, 2020 
Film, 7.27 min, loop
Music composed by Terence Dunn