Announcing NMR’s 2025 Artist in Residence
Alessandra Grima
NMR is a shared space among academics, artists, and activists to highlight and discuss their work. The artist-in-residence is chosen each year to share their work with the journal’s readership. Their work will be featured both in the print journal and on the website.
The North Meridian Review’s 2025 Artist in Residence is Alessandra (Grim) Grima.
She is a self-described “no-nonsense New England psychic who happens to be an adult film star, performer, and comedian.” As a proud fat person, she challenges conventional beauty standards and confronts fatphobia in each aspect of her work; be it film, burlesque, or tarot. Drawing on her experiences as a comedian and cancer survivor, Grim brings a unique and humorous perspective to discussions that aren’t often humorous, such as, bodily autonomy, medical fatphobia, and stigma. Through her many platforms, Grim will gladly shove fat representation in your face with both strength and humor. She proves that being genuine is the real representation we all need.
As she says about her art, “My work exists in a wild intersection of experiences: the personal repercussions of fatphobia, the liberating power of comedy, the necessity of community, the act of fat representation, the fight for sex worker rights, the unnerving journey of a cancer survivor, all with the anxiety of a psychic. I was 8-years-old when my first diet began. Since then, the narrative surrounding fat bodies (including my own), has been one of shame, othering, and unsolicited medical advice. My presence as a fat individual in various spaces – from runway to the theater – is a direct challenge to this narrative. When I was growing up, I believed fat people couldn’t be the star, they couldn’t be a model! My aim now is to disrupt that notion. My work, in it’s many forms, is an act of reclamation, a declaration that fat bodies are not only acceptable but also worthy. Especially for little 8-year-old me. I have heard the comments after a burlesque show saying I “show too much”, even though I remove the same amount of clothing as my fellow performers. I have seen the student in a drawing class refuse to draw me. I am inundated with comments online about diet, weight loss surgery, and questioning why anyone would be on my OnlyFans. Some days I want to cry and scream, and sometimes I do, but the best thing for me to do is, keep showing up.”