Alexandra Samuels

The University of Texas at Austin

Last year, Texas State University student Monika Rostvold sat on her school’s library steps wearing only a red blindfold, pasties, a nude thong and headphones. The performance art piece, the aim of which was to bring awareness to sexual assault, was so that spectators could see her body as “natural” and to “take the sexuality out.”

On Tuesday, Rostvold, a senior studio art major at TXST, was at it again -- but this time her outfit consisted mainly of Chick-fil-A fries and ketchup.

This year’s performance piece -- “All You Can Eat," which was written on napkins -- came with a new message: to bring awareness to what she says are the negative effects of dating and hooking up.

“I decided to relate (the piece) to food (to compare) the satisfaction we get with food to the satisfaction we get with hooking up," Rostvold, who also wore a bra and underwear, tells USA TODAY College.

The culture, she says, is "very satisfying, but is it healthy? Is it really what we want? That’s what I’m asking the audience. I know fast food and the body is hard to connect, but to me it just made sense.”

Rostvold says she wanted to resemble Nyotaimori, also known as “naked sushi girls," who are used literally as stands for sushi platters while guests eat.

Because of the attention she received last year, she says, she feels people were ready and open to looking for the message behind her art.

“(Students) were picking up napkins I had wrote on and I thought that was really cool because that’s what I want,” Rostvold says. “I want an open debate and discussion.”



Alex Samuels is a student at University of Texas and is a USA TODAY College breaking news correspondent.

This story originally appeared on the USA TODAY College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.