My name is Sasha Lee Slivinski. I go by many things in life, but the short of it is that I am a model, an artist, a writer, and a soon-to-be graduate of the University of Illinois at Chicago. My major is in Interdisciplinary Education in the Arts (or, more fondly, IDEAS).
On this site, you will see the details of my journey to create the final project of my years as a student. But more than that, you will see the cultivation and culmination of a very personal artwork. One that speaks to my experiences as an artist with one foot in her education, and the other in her deep passion for modeling.
It has been a true balancing act, prioritizing school while simultaneously remaining in the fast paced and demanding world of modeling, which I entered about five years ago. In those short years, I have appeared on the covers and pages of magazines, nationally and internationally.
It would be an understatement to say that I feel blessed to have found a place and a calling in the modeling industry. Many of the creatives I have met along this journey so far have become close friends. There are countless incredible experiences and projects I have had the privilege of getting to be a part of. And I wouldn’t trade any of that for the world.
However, with the glories and glamour of modeling, comes the dark and degrading. As a model, you must take on the inevitable hate, hurt, and harassment of the world. It is not just on social media that I endure this, but walking around in every day life as well. It has been my fashion to take comments and gestures with as much grace as I can muster, which for the most part means that I ignore them. But they do affect me in some capacity.
The sad part is, it’s not simply because I am a model that I receive this unwanted attention. Women as a whole are subject to ridicule for the things we say, do, and think. What we look like, what we wear, and what we decide to do with our bodies has somehow been the business of men for some time now.
This art project is my response.
“This is For Me.”
