The word ‘monster’ originates from the Latin, monstare, meaning ‘to show’. The monster is given its cultural meaning through a sustained act of looking. Monstare - my stare. The idea of the sideshow freak has seen deformity become something that simultaneously terrifies, sickens, excites, saddens and amuses us. It is in the display or exhibition of human abnormalities that a spectacle is created, rendering us active spectators rather than passive observers. Monstare is a collection of work that explores how varying types of difference are both celebrated and pathologised.
