Fat Stories

A photo-documentary investigating the lives of 6 fat activists in Australia.

If you think about the TV shows you watch, the articles you read in magazines, the pictures we see in the media and advertising, the representation of fat people is often superficial or laden with moral consequence for being fat.

Fat Stories challenges these stereotypes surrounding obesity in our society, these photographs offer an alternative representation of fat from the ones we so often see. Following the lives of 6 ‘fat activists’ in Australia this work will make you think about sizism, discrimination and stigma, It will make you question how we look at fat people, talk about fat people, and represent fat people.

To view another output from the project have a look at the online image library here.

Fat Stories is an outcome of a collaborative project between Isaac Brown and Lauren Gurrieri, both from Griffith University.

Isaac Brown

Isaac Brown is a photographer from Brisbane and works in the photo documentary genre. He has shown at the Museum of Brisbane, Qld Centre of Photography and is held in the Wolston Park Hospital and Darryl Hewson Collections. He has worked for with the ICRC, Artworkers Alliance, Qld Government, Museum of Brisbane, and Frankie Magazine. Often exploring relationships between the photographer and the subject Isaac’s work is contemplative and questioning. Isaac is an associate lecturer at the Queensland College of Art, Griffith University in Brisbane, teaching in the Bachelor of Photography program.

Lauren Gurrieri

Dr Lauren Gurrieri is a marketing academic currently based at the Griffith Business School, Griffith University. Her research focuses on the cultural aspects of consumption, consumer activism and consumer identity construction. This has brought her into contact with a diverse range of research subjects, from cool trendsetters, to voluntary simplifiers to fat activists. Common to all is a sense of struggle within a marketplace that co-opts, marginalises or excludes them. Dr Gurrieri is a qualitative researcher who specialises in visual and interpretive methods. In 2011 she was listed as one of the Top 100 Most Influential Melbournians by the Age Melbourne Magazine.