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Photography bridges between self-model and embodied body

“End up”. Self-portrait Alice Odilon 2008. Copyright. All rights reserved.


As a french woman photographer, I’ve devoted my passion and my prose to photography.

(Leonard Shengold  maintains that is this vital connection of prose and passion that constitutes insight.)

…..And through photography and with it, to women rights.



Practising Fine Art of Photography gave me access to reality and palpable thoughts and brainy feelings.

Art drove me through a long philosophic research, vital search of sense of my life and my destiny.

I spent 25 years working about woman identity, my embodied soul, my anorexic self and my healthy self, and my unconscious mind, living as a blind woman led by her secret unconscious.

I didn’t know what I was doing, I created pictures I didn’t understood but I went ahead.

I was anorexic, disembodied person, wit a huge power, sharp-eyed, seeing myself instead to feel myself.

I didn’t see with my body, I saw it, I had an “out of body” disembodiment, I felt the monstruous lack of my own body.

I was not in my body, I thought it, I didn’t feel it.

I had a metaphorical body image, I dreamed my body.

I saw me as a X, a ghost dressed in a white blouse gesticulating in a naked landscape.



1977. Copyright Alice ODILON. All rights reserved.


My body was a “body image” and was not transparent but like a death skin (a shade)protecting me from the looksthat could kill from my Mother.

I stayed alive but without my body.

I was a sort of Peter Pan.

If I would lost my shade I would die.

I was expecting a lot about my self model, this dead skin, this ultime shade.

It was my only perception of myself and believed in it as my identity, my unique true supreme identity.

So I was happy to not being in my struck dumb body which was a sacrificial thing for my Mother, until the day it decided to scream as a huge wound, a wide opening burning hole with a blood lava flow and tears.



“Little ghosty girl trying to reunit top and bottom”.1977. Copyright Alice ODILON.


Then my body compelled me to deal with it as a team with my self model, or leave.

This ultimatum of suffering haled me to choose between total immersion in self-model or make an accomodation with real “bloody” body and my brainy head, and therefore continuing to live.

A sort of Epiphany had happened in my life: I was able to bridge between my feelings and my thoughts,

between my self-model and my embodied body, between my inner and my outer body.

I’ve understood that {“we are not single, indivisible whole, but there are parts of us that can become affected, and parts that remain separate and therefore able to be an internal healer”.}

(Matthew Campling-Therapy Today/June 2006).



“Le leurre”. 1977. Copyright Alice ODILON. No Clone is free.


I recovered the energy to laugh and to feel pleasure, pain, without fear.

My symptom of the emptiness vouching for my own survival and security of my self-model, became a {“momentory twinge”}.

Bodily X metaphor of anorexia. Self-portrait Alice Odilon. Copyright 1977

(Ellen Siegelman – Metaphor and meaning in Psychotherapy).

Because emptiness asks finally for supply of food or feelings or relationships.

I became to have bulimia crisises which drove me to loss of self control.

Coming back to my self-model after vomiting, exhausted, thoroughly purged and emptied, I was obliged to admit allowing food or outer world to come inside me.

I became able to override time to time my hegemonic target of emptiness.

It became just a dream and not anymore a moral and physical obligation.

I knew I had to compromise my absolute faith of emptiness in order to taste my life, to enter into my life.

The metaphor of emptiness using by my body to express my psyche, told I felt invisible, I didn’t feel visible.

My emptiness experience of the anorexic figure was as if it was real.

I was feeling ghostly and it was extremely uncomfortable.

I saw my self as a soul dressed in a white blouse floating in a landscape.

The only thing I was sure was that people considered only my body image, and that I saw them only as images, unreal persons.

I didn’t get access to my feelings.

But practicing photography gave me the possibility to confront my fantasy with the palpable reality; to paste them together, and then to play with them, and finally to leave them co-exist.


Alice ODILON1620

The arm-hold trap

La nuit tombe bleue marine sur la ville où s’endorment Akan et la jeune fille, loin l’une de l’autre, dans un quartier opposé de la cité.

Elles ne se parlent plus maintenant.

Akan dans son lit repense à la demoiselle aux hirondelles.

Elle a peur pour elle.

C’est dans la peau de la jeune fille désormais, la peau neuve a été tatouée.

Le dessin splendide doit lui faire mal à cette heure ci.

Non parce qu’il s’agit d’une plaie, mais parce qu’il s’agit d’un terrible acte manqué à l’envers.

Il n’est cependant plus question de rature, hachure à l’encre noire.

“Le bras aux hirondelles”. copyright Alice ODILON 2010.

Pour la gamine, ce tatouage indélébile conclue son amour incontrôlé pour sa mère; pour celle-ci il s’agit d’une fantaisie, d’un message impubère.

Mais alors que c’est-il donc passé?

Quel est ce quiproco dans la peau, si douloureux et virtueusement regardable?

- J’ai voulu faire entrer les hirondelles dans mon ciel, et Akan avec, raconte la jeune fille dans son sommeil profond.

Je désirais les garder en moi, de crainte qu’elles ne s’envolent.

C’était la seule chose à laquelle je pouvais vraiment m’accrocher.

Cette pensée pour ma Mère.

Et je sentais Akan partir, vers la fin de sa vie et je l’ai retenue.

Ecrire ma mère dans ma peau représentait le pacte le plus réel de mon destin.

Sacraliser Akan c’était aussi la faire mienne pour que je puisse vivre enfin.

Toutes ces écritures à l’extérieur de moi, m’ont paniquée et se devaient d’être captées dans mon derme.

Je demande l’absolution afin que je puisse regarder l’intérieur de mon bras, sans la hantise du membre étranger.

Que ce cauchemar cesse à jamais, que ma mère ne craigne plus d’être dans ma peau.

Oh! Maman que m’as-tu fait en partant de ma vie?????

J’ai tellement eu peur pour toi, toujours.

Maman reviens moi, reste en moi, que je puisse vivre sans ta présence!

- Dans la nuit bleue marine, Akan ne peut plus dormir.

Ses longues jambes fuselées remuent lentement sous le drap.

A l’intérieur de ses bras maigres, s’endort une petite fille au bras hachuré d’oiseaux.

Son corps anorexique lui parle de la jeune femme aux hirondelles.



Alice ODILON. Copyright Alice ODILON 2010.

Navy Blue Night falls on the exile city where sleep Akan and the girl far away from each other in an opposite area of the city.

They do not talk anymore.

Akan in her bed, thinks about the swallow tattoo girl.

She is worried about her.

It’s in the skin of the girl right now. The new skin has been tattooed.

The virtuous design is certainly hurting her arm at this time.

Not because it is a wound, but because it is a terrible Lacanian backwards slip.

However, there is no question anymore of erasing, neither black ink hatching on the flesh.

For the girl, this uncontrolled indelible tattoo concludes her love for her mother.

For the the last one it is a fantasy, a message coming from someone below the age of puberty.


So what happened then?

What is this quiproco in the skin, so painful and virtuous watchable ?

- I wanted to show the swallows and  Akan in my sky, says the young girl in her deep sleep.

I wanted to keep them in me, I was so scared they flied away.

It was the only thing I could really hang on.

This memory of my Mother.

And I felt Akan leaving, towards the end of her life and I retained her.

Writing my mother in my skin was the most real covenant of my destiny.

Making Akan sakred, was although making her, mine, in order I could live finally.

I panicked, all these entries outside of me, had to be trapped in my skin.

I’m asking for absolution so that I can watch inside of my arm without the phantom pain specter of a missing limb.

Let this nightmare stops forever, let my mother no longer fears being in my skin.

Oh Mom! what have you done to my life ?????

I’m so afraid for you, always.

Mom be back to me, remains in me, then I can live without you!

- In the navy blue night, Akan can not sleep.

Her long slender legs slowly stir in the sheet.

Within her thin arms, a little girl with hatched birds on her limb, falls asleep.

Disembodied Akan dreams about the limbless baby.



Alice ODILON. Copyright 2010.




Meeting an anti-girl

NB: Depuis le début de ce blog, j’aurais dû mentionner que le code est le suivant:

Anorexic girl = anta-girl = disembodied person = embodied soul = bodily X metaphor = Figure A = Anorexic girl.


Amis lecteurs gardez les en mémoire, si vous en avez envie.

Reprenons: Après le difficil entrevue entre le grand homme élancé et Akan, il se passe des choses tristes dans la tête de notre héroïne: des choses amolissant, ralentissant l’envie et l’énergie de celle-ci.

Elle qui d’habitude part de rien et retrouve son tout, se situe maintenant sur une ère de rue délicate et pleine d’embûches.

A chaque pas, il faut bien regarder de tous côtés pour voir venir l’ennemi, ou l’espoir, la Figure A.

Rien n’est moins simple que de poursuivre et repartir en avant, même de travers.

Akan sait que si elle renonce, elle mourra par l’ennui et la mort dans l’âme.

Il vaut mieux aller jusqu’au bout et tenter le coup pour le tout A-Figure.

Elle n’y perdra rien, elle y perdra toute sa vie.

En s’amusant des contraires, Akan marche à côté d’une jeune fille blanche à la peau immaculée, fraîche du matin, toute neuve, éclose et pourtant……

Les rythmes des pas de nos deux personnages coïncident presque, il reste un écart imperceptible dû aux poids différents des corps.

La jeune femme petite et massive, porte son bassin comme la mort, comme une faute impardonnable, une erreur exquise, un écran à la vie.

Tout son corps est attaché à cette masse finale d’inertie.

Elle voudrait cacher çà, l’oublier, oublier son poids aveugle et sa masse réelle.

Mais elle ne peut pas, elle en fut dotée par le Dieu du malheur, lors de ses 4 ans.

De ce terrible fait elle marche lourdement, freinée par la part sourde.

D’ailleurs elle a senti le bras de Akan frôler sa robe et cela ne lui plaît pas car elle ne veut pas que l’on sente son corps, que l’on touche une parcelle de sa peau sublime, que l’on voit la largeur de ses hanches

prisonnières dans la chair opâque.

- Excusez-moi, s’écrie Akan, comme une idiote.

- Ce n’est pas grave, murmure la gamine taciturne et sombre.

- Je voulais vous dire; vous avez l’air d’une amphore, d’un vase de plomb, votre allure si épaisse et sombre me fait mal, avoue Akan, d’un flot de mots lancés.

Votre tronc est votre énigme, la question non élucidée, le sujet essentiel, que vous évitez depuis longtemps, des années, certainement.

Cette boîte en vous va rester fermée et se durcir encore, la porte ne cèdera jamais, il est trop tard.

Vous avez été traumatisée dans l’enfance par les méfaits d’un abuseur menaçant de mort votre mère, et vous avez dû la défendre nuit et jour.

Vous vous êtes perdue à vous battre contre le mal, votre mère s’en est sortie et vous a sauvée aussi, mais vous vous êtes tout de même perdue et le trauma vous a emmenée de l’autre côté, celui des méchants.

De témoins victime, vous êtes devenue un prédateur.

Les parents harceleurs font des enfants manipulables qui donnent naissance à des manipulateurs pervers narcissiques. Votre mère était manipulée par sa mère, elle est devenue anorexique pour survivre de l’emprise; Vous êtes née en 1988, Vous avez été une petite fille sage, chagrinée car vos parents se sont séparés lorsque vous aviez 3 ans.

Vous avez été mal pendant cette période, très mal, vous perdiez tout sentiment de sécurité; votre mère était seule et vous sentiez sa faiblesse et son errance.

Un jour de février 92, elle s’est perdue dans les bras d’un abuseur comme pour retrouver l’emprise sécurisante et morbide qu’elle avait connue petite fille avec sa propre mère.

Vous avez réalisé comment votre maman était manipulable et cela vous a terrorisée.

Elle vous est apparue faible et imbécile, vous avez vu son aveuglement presque aussitôt.

La manipulation mentale a été votre mécanisme de  survie.

Voyant votre mère se détruire sous l’emprise de l’abuseur.

Vous avez emprunté la stratégie du harceleur menaçant votre vie et celle de votre mère.

Cela vous a permis de ne plus avoir peur.

Mais cela ne vous a pas rendu heureuse, cela vous a donné cet air maussade, ce visage contracté de mécontentement, votre côté bilieux, votre mémoire morose.



- Non mais çà va pas, espèce de folle! comment osez-vous? vous êtes vous regardée dans une glace, horreur de ma vue, mocheté, affreuse vieille femme, vous êtes si laide, tas d’os, terrible spectre nerveux, vous n’avez pas le droit de me dire la vérité.

- Si je suis ainsi c’est que je l’ai voulu, voilà toute la différence.

je me veux maigre et ardue comme l’herbe des chemins.

Sèche et racée en hirondelle dans le ciel.

Mon pas abrite mon coeur et mon corps respire dans mes pas.

je ne transporte plus rien avec moi que moi-même et mon présent, le reste s’est envolé, le mal s’est assoupi. Des cancers j’ai fait des gallets sur la plage.

Je me suis acceptée.

- Vos dires sont infondés. j’ai en effet un corps intérieur symbole de masouffrance et mon histoire dramatique, j’ai une volonté d’acier pour combattre le mal que je vois partout.

Je dois maîtriser les gens, les séduire, les charmer, les observer, les tester, les flatter.

je dois tuer l’autre pour vivre.

Je n’ai pas le choix, c’est ma vie.


Alice ODILON. Copyright 2/07/2010.


NB  Since the start of this blog I should have mentioned the following equivalence :

Anorexic girl = anta-girl = disembodied person = embodied soul = bodily X metaphor = Figure A = Anorexic girl.


Dear Readers bear this in mind if you so wish.


Let’s continue: Following the difficult meeting between the tall elegant man and Akan something sad came to pass in the mind of our heroine, something relaxing, reducing her desire and energy.

She, who normally started from nothing and yet discovered everything, found herself in a delicate situation on a road full of pitfalls.

With each step she had to look around for potential dangers, or hopefully for Figure A.

Nothing is easier than to continue and to move forward, even awry.

Akan knows that if she doesn’t she’ll die of boredom and a heavy heart.

Better to go through with it and go all out for A Figure.

She won’t loss anything; she’ll lose all her life.

Whilst reflecting on these contradictions, Akan was walking next to a pale young girl with perfect skin, fresh as a daisy, brand new, as if newly hatched and yet………….

The rhythms of their steps almost coincided, there was just an almost imperceptible difference due to their contrasting body weights.

The young girl, small and heavy built, carried her pelvis as if dead, like an unforgivable sin, a terrible error, a shield from life.

All her body is attached to this mass of death and inertia.

She would have liked to hide this, forget it, forget her weight and her true mass.

However she is incapable, she was cursed with it by the God of misfortune when she was only 4 years old.

As a result of this terrible fact she walked heavily, slowed down by her handicap.

Besides she had felt Akan’s arm graze her dress and this was unpleasant for her as she didn’t want anyone to feel her body, to touch any part of her magnificent skin, or see the size of her hips imprisoned within.

- Excuse me, exclaimed Akan like an idiot.

- It’s nothing, murmured the taciturn and gloomy young girl.

- I’d like to tell you; you look like an amphora, a vase made of lead, your appearance so solid and somber upsets me, confessed Akan, with an outpouring of words. Your body is your enigma, the unanswered question, the essential subject that you have avoided for so long, years no doubt.

This box in you will remain closed and become even more durable, the door will never open, it is too late.

You have been traumatised in childhood by the misdeeds of an abuser threatening the life of your mother, and you had to defend her night and day.

You entered perdition by fighting against this evil, your mother escaped, saving you as well, despite which you were lost, the trauma transformed you and you ended up on the side of the wicked.

From being a victim and witness you have become a predator.

Overpowering and aggressive parents produce children that are easily manipulated who themselves give birth to perverse narcissic manipulators.

Your mother had been manipulated by her mother so she became anorexic to escape this stranglehold; You were born in 1988, you were a well-behaved little girl, saddened when your parents separated when you were 3.

You were unhappy during this period, very unhappy, you lost all sense of security; your mother was alone and you sensed her weakness and wandering.

One day in February 1992 she fell for an abuser as if she wanted to return to the unhealthy sensations of her childhood being manipulated by her own mother.

You realised how easily your mother could be manipulated and that terrorised you.

She seemed weak and stupid to you, you saw how blind she was almost immediately.

Mental manipulation was your means of surviving.

Seeing your own mother self destruct under the influence of the abuser, you took on the mantel of the abuser who threatened both you and your mother.

Like this you were no longer afraid.

However this didn’t make you happy, it gave you your sulky attitude, your discontented look, your bilious manner, your morose memories.

- But who do you think you are? You’re mad! Who gave you the right?

Have you looked in a mirror recently? Awful, horrible old woman, you are so ugly, a pile of bones, a nervous wreck, you don’t have the right to tell me the truth.

- I’m like this because I want to be, that’s the big difference.

I want to be thin and tough like grass growing on paths.

Dry and racy like swallows in the sky. My steps harbour my heart and my body breathes through my steps.

I have no other baggage than myself and my present, all the rest has gone, my pain has gone to sleep. I have transformed my cancerous memories into no more than pebbles on a beach.

I have come to terms with myself.

- What you say is untrue.

Effectively I have an inner body which is a symbol

of my suffering and my dramatic past; however I have a will power of steel to fight the evil that I see everywhere.

I have to master people, seduce them, charm them, observe them, test them, and flatter them.

I need to kill others to live.

I have no choice, it’s my life.


Alice ODILON. (Traduction David SOAMES)4/06/2010


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