EVA TARINA

Future of Body Positivity,
Youth Advocate

Eva Tarina, a junior at the President School in Moscow, is a developing self taught visual artist who works across artistic media. A young woman growing up in a traditional patriarchal society, Eva is passionate about challenging gender roles through her artwork and giving voice to young women.

Eva’s passion started with love of reading and desire to embody her favorite characters through art. Her favorite childhood character was Sherlock Holmes, as she was inspired by his intellect and rationality. During first years of school embracing new knowledge she discovered literature and poetry and found it as a new inspiration for her works. Later she decided to become a member of a school committee in order to improve the daily life of all the pupils. However, the reality fell short of what she expected. In reality, most of her time and effort was spent trying to convince the principal of the school to make positive changes rather than actually accomplishing anything. After a year in the school committee, she understood the power of bureaucratic politics, which often create obstacles rather than opportunities. The job of leaders should be to lead people to overcome these processes which often impede progress, a bitter early political lesson.

Thus, she decided to take a bold step and address a social issue which touched upon the topic most vulnerable for her - gender roles and the pernicious nature of modern beauty standards for women. Eva’s experience in a model agency motivated her to question the extent to which beauty standards in Russia influence women’s physical and mental health.

One day she witnessed her closest friend hysteria because her mother didn’t allow her to eat more than three green apples a day.  The criticism from the older generation about her weight encouraged her to discover to what extent this problem is common between the young girls. It was harmful for her to know how many women are objectified and humiliated by comments on how they look. She decided to express the issue of “beauty terror” by creating a platform to highlight challenges young women face due to these pernicious modern tendencies. The aim is both to educate and empower young women to express their truth through art, a universal language for expressing difficult emotions even when words fail, was born. This will include local events and fundraisers for womens’ health, educational resources to raise awareness of this issue, and building a support community for young women to share their experiences and advice.