Linda Montano, Anorexia nervosa and an art of hunger

Abstract

In performance artist Linda Montano's deceptively simple 1981 video Anorexia nervosa, five women are interviewed about their experiences with self-starvation. In the video's interplay between image and speech, Montano creates a correlation between internalized hunger and the perceivable body, placing notions of spirituality and physical hunger at the core of the video. This reflection considers Anorexia nervosa as a meditation on ascetic discipline and talk therapy, both of which are, for Montano, strategic modes of art production.