How to Fit: #9

Both figuration and humanism have increasingly come into question during the postmodern period and this has been defined by disputations that surround ideas of identity (the lack of an `essential self¿) in a contemporary society considered through a multiplicity of views. Art historian and artist Davor D¿alto questions postmodern interpretations of a sustainable personal identity and Westwood's project posits this view for further historical, cultural and artistic development and investigation. In turn this research was included in the group exhibition `How can a Network.....? curated by Zara Stanhope as a project of the internationally focused organisation The South Project. Westwood was invited to contribute work to this project by a peer review panel (consisting of curators, academics and artists) involved with The South Project. In this project his work was included with the work of artists representing seven countries from across the Southern hemisphere. The research in this project explores the dichotomous relationship of the individual to a capital based society, where individual consumers are positioned at the centre of society with a perception of choice based in excess. This work involves the use of formalism while also exploring the disintegration of formalism. Formalism is utilized as a visual metaphor to allude to structure and organization as a societal ideal within modernity. The work explores formalist organisation as representative of a utopian and absolutist impetus within `the State¿ while also representing a contemporary decadence based in desire.