Lidia Lidia as The Bag Lady

AN artist is walking the streets of Islington with a paper bag over her head to expose the harms of social media – and the race for cosmetic surgery which makes everybody look the same.

Lidia Lidia, who lives in Angel after moving to London from Italy 13 years ago, said the idea for her work The Bag Lady came to her after meeting someone who regularly used Botox filler as a cosmetic procedure.

“I work full-time as a life model to earn my money, which I spend on my art because no one gives me money for my art,” said Lidia.

“There was this other life model there. She is in her 50s and she’s just so stunning. One day I asked her: ‘What do you do to be this way?’ And she just said ‘Botox!’ And I thought, ‘OK, I’m going to do Botox because I want to keep my work for as long as possible.”

But she was horrified at what a search online threw up. “I started to look at what exactly Botox does,” she said. “Maybe I just live in a bubble, but I thought all of these beautiful lips that you see women with online were real.

“I thought it was the evolution of the race getting older and taller, and the younger generation getting more beautiful. But, I discovered that their high cheekbones and full lips were filler, and the more research I did, the more I learned about the filters that people apply on their photos.”

Lidia Lidia and a skeleton prop she owns called Mr Slim Bones

Lidia added: “I saw lots of photos on Instagram where everyone does this. So, I thought it would be great to do a series of photos with the same mask and different clothes. To show that everything you see is all the same.”

Drawing the mask on a paper bag is a metaphor to show that the wearer is an object, something to be consumed.

Lidia said that it’s essential to understand, “when you’re on social media, it’s not free,” adding: “You are the commodity.”

The Bag Lady as an artwork has come alive in different ways including a picture called “Selfitis” – a real disease defined as an obsessive need to take selfies – which shows The Bag Lady taking a selfie. There has also been street performance art where every few steps The Bag Lady stops to take a selfie, and a series of photos of Lidia wearing different clothes with the bag mask on.

“I started using Instagram, and sometimes my partner would come home, and I’d be in bed in tears,” she said. “It affected me so much, it made me feel physically inadequate.  So, if it affects me at this age, what can go on in the brain of a younger person that’s going through hormonal changes? It puts pressure on them to have everything done at such a young age, to be sexy at 12 or 13. They should be allowed to be children.”

She added: “When people see The Bag Lady I want them to understand that social media is not real. Our life is real. They can do their own research and if they choose to be a victim of a platform that’s exploiting them, then ok.”

But she added: “I’m not just a middle-aged nutter, I’m a middle-aged nutter that has reason to be very pissed off.”