Meet the digi feminist artist living out two alter egos

In pursuit of reclaiming ownership over her image, creating a therapeutic space, and challenging the notion that a woman cannot be publicly sexual without being slut-shamed, NYC based artist Leah Schrager conceptualised two online alter egos that live out different aspects of herself.

Founding The Original Naked Therapy Practice in 2010 under the alias of Sarah White, and subsequently in her final year studying Fine Art at Parsons, @OnaArtist – the sexually liberated Instagram celebrity who has since garnered 372,000 followers and launched an EP, Sex Rock – Leah has been pushing the boundaries of conceptual performance art, while exploring themes of art vs commerce, the male and female gaze and web identity.

As she continues to make a feminist statement through her provocative work, we caught up with the self proclaimed “extreme selfie model” and “female Elvis” to ask how she retains her sense of self, what Sarah White and Ona Artist mean to her, and the positive and negative responses she receives.

What was your motivation behind creating, firstly, Sarah White The Naked Therapist, then Instagram celebrity, musician and artist Ona?

Sarah White started as a real, “what if” adventure. Like, what if male arousal was allowed in therapy, just like female arousal is? Like, what’s going on online with all the naked girls and all the men wanting to see them and how would that play out in a therapeutic context? It’s such a huge thing in terms of online activity, yet it’s really rarely discussed in the mainstream. So I came up with the idea, put it online, people started doing it, and as word spread more people did it. It’s become bigger than I ever imagined. And I think I’m also really spot on with the original questions that sparked it, and they are as important as ever. There’s something happening there, but it’s mostly ignored in the mainstream.

Ona is in a way an attempt to take the original pro-sex ideas that I learned through practicing Naked Therapy and make them more mainstream. Therapy is a niche, and quite expensive. Ona shares most of her stuff for free or near free – the Instagram, the music, videos. But I’m happy to do this as I want more love and peace between the sexes, and it’s my hope that the project will spread that message. I started Ona during the last semester of my MFA in Fine Art at Parsons, and she also acts as a really great platform for me to explore my conceptual and visual art.

I actually think of my @OnaArtist Instagram as a therapeutic space. It’s a space for healthy expressions and explorations of arousal, which includes any form of verbally expressed desire that is not hateful.

What do your alter egos mean to you?

I like to think of them as heteronyms, or different names for the same thing, although they are different names for different aspects of me. They’re linked to unique stages in my life (and the Internet’s life) and my various online interests and presentations.

How does having online alter egos affect your normal life as Leah?

They are quite all consuming in terms of my artistic conceptualization, as well as socially (at least digi-socially), Some people can understand that an online performance isn’t necessarily how a person is, some can’t. It’s been surprising that some close friends and family members have had a problem with what I do online. So while I love working on my projects – they bring so much artistic and personal joy and exploration for me – it’s unfortunately still overshadowed by harsh negative judgements I get. But I’m trying to get over caring about that. I think it’s expected that a person would act differently at home with their kids, with their loved one in bed, at a work meeting, or singing to a stadium of thousands of people. I just do that online, and too many people conflate them. Or, as a friend once said, there’s a difference between “authentically performing” and “performing authenticity” online. I am way into the latter, and not the former.

Would you say you’ve lost your sense of self and identity at all through your alter egos?

No. But other’s have lost their sense of my self.

When did your fascination with the female body begin?

I started doing ballet at age eight and have done dance or yoga almost every day since! So I’ve always been interested in performing with my body, and it’s turned into an interest in how other people judge the performance – what it elicits.

What is the statement about feminism you are making through your alter egos?

I’m trying to say that a woman should be able to be publicly sexual and still be respected (and not be slut-shamed). I had dinner with Nina Hartley the other day and we are on such the same page – she’s been facing the argument over “pornography as empowering to women or not” for years. While there are many strains of feminism, I feel that those who shame women in any way for the choices they make with their bodies are not feminists. They often think they are, but it seems paradoxical to me.

How would you describe the responses to your alter egos?

From my online fans I receive so much love, it’s astoundingly beautiful! It’s also exciting that some in the intellectual/academic circles are able to see and elucidate the complexity and importance of the message. And then some are blinded by “arousal” and simply say it’s wrong. It’s amazing how people coming at my work from different entry points and backgrounds can react so differently. Some just take me as a whole and love it, some just take in one part of it, and some take some part of it and hate it.

What do you hope for the future of Sarah White and Ona Artist?

I hope for ONA to become a household name with her music and her free loving message! And I hope one day for the APA to recognize Naked Therapy, though I think the first is more likely to happen than the second.