ON DIRT; ON EXCESS; ON THE ABJECT

The motivation of this project draws from the concept of ‘dirt’, according to Mary Douglas (1966, 3), as matter-out-of-place, meaning that what is considered to be ‘dirty’ in a culture is rather related to the social context of an object than to the matter itself. In connection to the topic of sexuality, I have researched on perceptions of ‘dirt’ related to the ‘female’ body in ‘western’ cultures, focusing on perceptions of body hair as matter out of place, to be ‘cleaned’, and cut hair as what is excluded from ‘the body’, receiving the status of ‘other’ or ‘abject’ in Kristeva’s (1980, 1) term.