ABBIE TRAYLER SMITH - KISS IT
ABBIE TRAYLER SMITH - KISS IT
Kiss it! New photo book by Abbie Trayler-Smith
An intimate photographic portrait of Shannon, who has been the central
inspiration for her long-term project The Big O. www.thebigoproject.com
KISS IT is Abbie’s first photo book an intimate portrait of Shannon (now 26) who has been a central inspiration for her long-term work The Big O examining the issue of obesity in school-age children and young adults. I wanted to feature Abbie’s and Shannon’s work as I have been watching this project grow also it’s a subject that’s really close to the bone to me, my mum was bulimic for a short time and I remember her making herself sick down the toilet, she was always worried about her weight laying on the floor squeezing into jeans and if her legs looked thin in leggings and all the different diets. I also tried the whole make oneself sick thing as a teen, you could buy lose weight speed pills from a random place in my home town to and had boyfriends say you are beautiful but if you just lost a bit of weight think how even more stunning you would look. Which actually makes one feel shit. This is something that so many of us experience and it’s a long conversation that sadly is still going strong, back this brilliant, sensitive collaborative project and help this work become a book. Keep the conversation about body empowerment and nurturing a sense of strong self-esteem alive, I feel Abbie and Shannon are brave, we still live in a world where this should not be the case.
“Please don’t patronise me with eat less and exercise more, walk in my shoes for a day and then tell me what you think.” - Shannon, age 15 from a poem by the class from Shine, an after-school weight management program, detailing their needs to the professionals.
“Shannon has fearlessly allowed me into her life, with absolute candour, over many years. Through the document of her experiences, I hope that we might be able to gain a more resonant view of what it actually means to be fat”. ©ABBIE TRAYLER-SMITH
“The global rise in youth obesity is critically misunderstood. Worldwide, we now have 124 million school-age children classified as either obese or overweight. The sheer scale of the challenge has depersonalized our response, collectively and individually. It often feels impenetrable as a topic, robbing us of the capacity to care. But the everyday reality of struggling with weight and self-image remains”. ©ABBIE TRAYLER -SMITH
KISS IT! ©ABBIE TRAYLOR - SMITH
“We can see the ways in which Shannon’s life is changed... and maybe more importantly, the ways in which she refuses to allow it to be changed”. ©ABBIE TRAYLER -SMITH
“In the photographs of her extraordinary, ordinary life, we see not only her story, but the story of anyone who has grown up feeling as though they are somehow different”. ©ABBIE TRAYLER - SMITH
KISS IT! ©ABBIE TRAYLER - SMITH
“Her brave, relentlessly infectious energy, gives us a window of empathy and understanding into a subject which requires it more than ever and which isn’t going away.” ©ABBIE TRAYLER - SMITH.
©ABBIE TRAYLER - SMITH
KISS IT! ©ABBIE TRAYLER - SMITH
KISS IT! ©ABBIE TRAYLER SMITH
KISS IT! ©ABBIE TRAYLER SMITH
KISS IT! ©ABBIE TRAYLER SMITH