| Summary |
Skin Deep explores beauty, ageing, imperfection, health and illness, all of which are closely related to skin, and interrogates whiteness, both historically, structurally and through current notions of white fragility and victimhood. Paradoxically, skin is a barrier and a point of contact. It is miraculous, our biggest organ. It heals itself! It's wafer-thin! Skin cells remake themselves! Phillipa McGuinness has interviewed plastic surgeons, dermatologists, burn survivors, beauticians, melanoma sufferers, people who suffer from body dysmorphias, victims and perpetrators of racism, and all kinds of people who are and are not comfortable in their own skin, to write a book where science meets art and culture, history and politics. Philosophy too, given skin is the point where our self, and our self-perception, struggles with or embraces the way others see us, and the way we see ourselves. |
