Mortasha Chan
Bio
Mortasha is an artist who is in her fourth year at the University of Toronto Scarborough, studying Studio Art and Human Biology. Her practice concentrates on digital media, such as photographs and sound. Art is a form of self-expression for Mortasha. “Distortion” is one of her works that focuses on how social media created a beauty standard that is distorted. Mortasha also loves travelling and exploring new places. She has been discovering places in the city and trying to do something new with art. While she was visiting the places, she captured moments that inspired her with her camera. “Behind the Tile” is a series of photographs that she took during her journey.
Behind the Tile
Mahjong is a tile-based game that originated in China in the 19th century. The standard Mahjong set has 136 pieces, with 36 different types of pieces (4 of each). There are three suits (bamboos, characters and dots), numbered one through nine. The game involved four players. Each player takes turns selecting and discarding tiles until the whole set of possible combinations has been created. In order to win, the player needs to build sets to get high scores.
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“Biu Kee Mahjong” is one of the last hand-carved mahjong shops in Hong Kong. Mr. Cheung Shun King is the owner and the artisan of the shop, who has been carving mahjong for the past 50 years. Though the business is declining compared to the past decades due to the digitalization of mahjong on devices. Back to the busiest time of the shop (40 years ago), Mr. Cheung used to carve 2 to 3 sets of mahjong in one day, but nowadays, he needs at least one week to finish carving a set of mahjong. Making hand-carved mahjong is time-consuming compared to mahjong made by machine. The process included carving, painting, waiting for the paint to dry (around 10 mins), scraping the paint off, rubbing the tile and refining the stroke.
Distortion
“Distortion” focuses on how the unattainable Western beauty standard (skinny and hourglass-shaped body, light skin, tall, etc.) promoted by social media affects people’s mental health on the platform. Instagram is one of the most popular social media. It provided a platform for us to share our lives with others but it is custom to only share the best moments in our lives and the carefully selected photos or videos. People would manipulate their photos on social media to enhance their appearance, attract more followers and get compliments, to make themselves feel good. This resulted in the unrealistic beauty standard and social comparison that led to negative feelings of people on their body images.
In the images, the forest with distorted facial features and gestures implied the mental status (3 different stages) of the woman who couldn’t meet the western beauty standard. The responses of viewers on social media affected the woman’s mental health and promoted an unattainable beauty standard which resulted in a distortion of beauty.
