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Somewhere between underground cables and overhead flights - written piece
I browse through images and videos of the 2022 internet trend of glass skin; it appears amongst other complex skincare routines available to view on the internet. Glass skin means “skin that looks crystal-clear, poreless, translucent, and luminous - like a piece of glass.” A beauty standard to add to the growing list of how to better oneself. There are accompanying discussions below each post, advice on how to achieve such skin, where you can travel to in Korea to receive specialised facials, and how it is more affordable to fly to Korea and back than to receive these treatments in the US or Australia. The transplantation of this beautification practice from one place to another happens somewhere between underground cables and overhead flights. Outsourcing beauty globally contributes to a system that funds, studies, propagates, and proliferates businesses that operate on colonised, industrialised, capitalised, and then digitised lands.
When I was younger, I wasn't interested in history or beauty modifications. What I was taught at school did not speak to me. My close family was fortunate enough to survive the Second World War by living transiently between English colonies, and beauty was perceived as separate from any notion of necessity, knowledge, or value. I was prompted to live currently in a place of personal and natural beauty, limited not by historical occurrences or personal appearances. A product of the new and fresh colony of Australia, the fortunate country with ample resources and places of natural beauty. I became interested in history in Warrane (Sydney), where I moved to study at university. Captured by its beautiful landscape, I learned how its hills, valleys, and coastlines shaped the first colony in Australia. Mixed in and amongst the now fast-paced, capitalist lifestyle of the East, I could still perceive the natural under the concrete and the beauty in the mixtures of native and introduced vegetation and population. Before this I had not perceived this underlying framework as both natural and colonial on this land that was, and continues to be, violently stolen and colonised by settlers - my own family among them. A far cry from my blank historical slate and natural perception I had of myself.
As I perceived myself and my surroundings further, the beautification of myself and the land became a justification for the continuation of colony building. A task undertaken at scale so we could live upon sites that mark the violent disruption of one of the world's oldest living cultures…
…A manicure
A garden
A manicured lawn
A beauty retreat
A beautiful retreat
A skincare routine for glass skin
A glasshouse…
The systemisation of opportunities provided to me as a settler increased my ability to further my prosperity, affording me means to better myself both academically and aesthetically. Enabling the continuation of my ability to be perceived as blank, neutral, normal, and natural. Colonisation has affected both landscape and personal beauty standards in southeastern Australia, which has shaped how Australia is aesthetically perceived today. To acknowledge this effect of colonisation is to acknowledge the importation of European beauty standards to Australia. Transported plants and ideas often contained in glass vitrines (or Wardian cases) that allowed elements of European culture to thrive away from their provenance. This has resulted in dislocated plants, agricultural practices, architecture, and aesthetic ideals that underpin industrial and capital practices in southeastern Australia today.
In Sydney, the work I did during university allowed me to walk through the city and commute, which I undertook as a form of research. I wondered during these walks about the forced shaping of the city. How were building designs chosen, what did the ornate stonework reference, why were palm trees planted in concrete boxes along the sidewalk, and which elements of the urban environment were intentional or unintentional? How did they become the fabric of a place I now call home?
Everything was brought here, built, and multiplied by various peoples and cultures. Yet aesthetics that hold strong in our cities, the plants, buildings, and ideas often link back to English colonisation. Curiosities involving a humble house plant bought from Bunnings, or the glow of UV light from the manicure bar at the nail salon would lead me back to extractive systems built off ideas stemming from British imperialism. English colonialism's widespread hold over Australia allows some to maintain wealth that in turn allows them to better their living environment. In Australia, land is wealth, and given a small number of settlers have historically hoarded this wealth, colonial wealth must, therefore be linked to the aesthetic design of our landscapes and cities.
Spaces are often categorised as either natural or man-made. However, the concept of "natural" has been influenced by British imperialism. Colonisers transported people, plants, and animals across continents, reshaping natural environments. Despite this, they romanticised and upheld certain sites as examples of great natural beauty within the colonies. Glasshouses placed in botanical gardens, now considered beautiful retreats within our urban centres, were initially used as colonial devices. The colonial powers oppressed indigenous peoples globally, often forcing them off their lands and disregarding the value of their cultural heritage. In this process, plants, peoples, and their stories were renamed and recontextualised to conform to European ideals. The use of glasshouses or smaller versions of them, such as in Wardian cases, preceded the stealing of plants from indigenous lands and transporting them worldwide. The miniaturisation and commodification of the colonial project were used to dislocate plants and animals from their provenance in the name of science, research, capital, and beauty.
Today, glasshouses are seen as spaces of beauty and peace. This recontextualisation ignores what was lost and destroyed in the quest to provide a structure for natural beauty to thrive outside of its provenance.
I come from a family of scientists, researchers, medical practitioners, business owners, and workers as product producers. All reproducers of knowledge and objects centred in the Western canon that have profited off the pilfering of other countries through the colonial project. I am not a blank product, I do not live on lands that belonged to my ancestors. I live on lands that pass ownership somewhere between underground cables, overhead flights, and ships bringing objects and plants dislocated from their provenance, sustained by UV light and plastic coverings, to aid in continuing my comfortable existence in Australia. When I look at videos telling me how to achieve skin so much like glass it appears translucent, I imagine the reach of each video and its repopulation across globalised, capital economies. I imagine plants pressed up against the glass skin, my glass skin. Ones that make me smell nicer, ones that make my skin itch, and ones I keep in plastic pots around my federation-style house to make the spaces and myself better and more beautiful.
The origins of glasshouses date back to the Romans, emperor Tiberius wanted to eat cucamelons (a cucumber-type vegetable) all year round. A small mobile garden bed was made and moved, and covered with translucent material, tracking the sun to enable the cucamelon to grow year-round. This preliminary glasshouse allowed the modification of the natural for extravagant purposes, in a society that admired wealth and beauty. As their wealth and power grew and their empire expanded they gathered riches from further countries, eventually colonising part of Britain. The Roman influence on Britain was later used as part of the justification for its colonial project. Proclaiming Roman influence had enabled Britain to become more civilised and beautiful, and therefore their colonial project was grounded in the eventual betterment of the colonies, not destruction. Elements of the Roman Empire have been shrunken down, commodified, and spread around the globe both through glasshouses and global food economies.
On the body, historical beautification attempts are mirrored in the contemporary beauty industry. One example is shellac nails, and teeth whitening which temporarily change the colour of my nails and teeth. By using UV light contained in a mouth guard or manicure bar, I am able to better my appearance through monthly payments. Shellac, too, is a material that has been historically extracted by the West from colonised lands to profit from.
I look at my phone screen, my nails, and the houseplant by my bed. I go to the fridge and open
it to look at the relatively empty shelves, one with an untouched jar of pickles imported from Italy. Objects that surround my inner and outer experience are often a manifestation of the colonial project. I stand there at the fridge with my nails done, my teeth whitened, with my glass skin in a glass house in a perfectly manicured environment, manicured by my ancestors through the colonial project so that I can stand on the other side of the globe from my provenance and feel that my life is normal.