On a sultry summer day in Brooklyn last year, artist and couture designer Michaela Stark found herself in a studio surrounded by 175 cameras, for a photo shoot unlike any she’d done before.
Clad only in her signature corsetry that binds the flesh, Stark stood in the midst of a circle as the cameras captured all angles of her body, simultaneously — part of an intricate process known as photogrammetry. The goal: to scan her body and build a mannequin — three, actually — for display in one of the world’s top museums, the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And at the Met Gala, no less.
“It was definitely a bit nerve-wracking,” recalls Stark of the “intimate and vulnerable” experience. But, she quips, “something about being naked on a 40-degree (Celsius) day in a corset that isn’t hiding anything kind of takes the awkwardness away from the situation, actually.”
The
You’ve reached your free article limit
Subscribe to enjoy unlimited access to trusted journalism. Cancel anytime.
Subscribe nowNeed help? molokom@insidepolitic.co.za
