The animated video above contains real recordings from people who experienced humiliating situations while trying to get from point A to B in a plane. The creator, Stacy Bias, is a “a fat activist, artist, and animator living in London, UK (formerly Portland, Oregon).” This video premiered at the DADA Fest (Deaf and Disability Arts Festival) in Liverpool and was exhibited in a couple of Liverpool galleries. Stacy writes that:
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Listen to Real People Talk About What It's Like Flying While Fat
“Flying is uncomfortable for many people, but when the physical infrastructure of the plane doesn’t accommodate your body and the social attitudes of other passengers make the plane environment a hostile space, flying can be a particularly anxious thing to do. News stories about fat passengers often present them as unreasonably taking up space that is not their own, as a problem for others, dehumanising fat people akin to ‘excess baggage.’ To challenge these narratives, this animation presents the voices of fat passengers as they explain the challenges of fitting into spaces that exclude them both socially and materially.
“The animation is a humanising narrative, encouraging people to empathise with fat people as fellow passengers and human beings, and to think about the political and economic relations that contribute to this exclusion. This animation features the voices of fat air passengers as recorded in live interviews discussing their lived experiences. It is a piece of a larger research project begun during my undergraduate degree at Goldsmiths, University of London (795 survey responses, 28+ in-depth interviews) and forms the foundation for a new bit of joint research with the University of Liverpool and Dr. Bethan Evans, who partially funded the creation of this animation.”
For more information visit Flying While Fat. 