The artist’s pursuit to challenge and transform the status quo rests on Bell Hook’s compelling argument for the transgressive image. According to Hook, the real work begins with “creating alternatives, asking ourselves questions about what types of images subvert, pose critical alternatives and transform our worldviews and move us away from dualistic thinking about good and bad.” Representation comes from an understanding of collective history and the perspective from which we create. This is timely, as I’ve read through a multitude of reactions to the recent unveiling of President Obama’s and First Lady Michelle Obama’s portraits. I am particularly interested in Baltimore painter Amy Sherald’s representation of Michelle Obama and her decision to paint the First Lady’s skin in grey tones. Skin color, a traditional form of race identification, was completely excluded (https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-appearances/the-mystery-of-amy-sheralds-portrait-of-michelle-obama). In terms of the Hook reading, I wonder what this says about the political perspective from which the artist paints. In my interpretation, by devaluing skin color and ultimately stripping away the racial charge, it renders the “white” narrative powerless. Sherald still taps into the collective black past, however, in other ways such as the geometric shapes on Michelle Obama’s dress that remind the artist of quilt making artisans in Alabama.

I’m not sure if there are transformational representations of undocumented migrant youth at this point but the readings this week have opened the avenue for exploration. Thus far, the perspective largely communicates a narrative of the oppressed laborer (i.e. Alto Arizona Art Campaign Poster) or the law-breaking, wall-hopping runner (i.e. Michael Wells, Collaborating Photographer of The Land of Open Graves). This is important for me to look at this critically because young adults in my project may need to select images to be the descriptors of their experience and identity. Do the available images retell the same oppressed narrative or are we forced to create the alternative image?

Doing Visual and Arts-Based Research
UED 75200
Professor Gene Fellner ([email protected])
Spring 2018
Wednesday 6:30-8:30
Shawn Brown
2/19/2018

The image of the artist was telling. I can see myself in this image. His appearance is similar to what I regularly wear when feel safe. When in different settings I change my presentation to ensure that the people around do not feel threatened by my clothing. The fact that a book was created to help Negros stay safe while traveling is telling of the violence that America had inflicted on Blacks historically.

“It was widely used at a time when African Americans were navigating physical and social mobility through the swamp of Jim Crow laws and attitudes in the mid 20th century”. The artist brings this navigation to life visually and physically. He desires to place the audience in the shoes of a Black motorist to experience, the joy, anxiety, fear, and confusion one may feel in this space. Being able to get a glimpse of the American dream, yet remaining bound by “barriers, and accessibility, and obstacles, and perseverance”.

The artwork is telling of a historical narrative of racism and violence in America. I think of the number of hangings that must of have taken place to birth such a map. I think of how many lives were ravished to structure this map. I envision the roads lined with the blood of Blacks seeking freedom. Making this information emotional to me is dependent on the viewer and their knowledge of segregation and lynchings in the south after emancipation. The map has roadways and paths that represented possible neutral areas that weren’t slumped in violence. Roads were among the country’s few unsegregated spaces. When trying to find lodging from their travels, Blacks had few options. Most businesses closed their doors.

Living in 2018 I can say that little has changed. The rules are different, but the level of violence and racism continues to this day. I believe the only difference is technology and our ability to see what has been happening to Black motorists all along. I have witnessed, a 70-year-old man killed when reaching for identification, another died in front of his child, another when running away, a man’s spine broken in half, etc. etc. The creator of this map spoke of a time when the map will be obsolete. Sadly, I think a map, app, website, group chat, and online community needs to be developed for Black motorists in 2018.

Black Looks

Equitable representation of Blacks has always been a challenge in mass media. With this challenge comes an added layer of misogyny that always seems to take a back seat. White supremacy lives within the hearts of all ethnic groups. The most conscious Black person has been engulfed in a racist, sexist world of imagery by way of mass media. Minor interventions have led to insignificant changes. Revolution does not take place only through conversations without regulations to support these interventions. To create a dialog about the experiences of Black people language must be developed that is universally understood. Violence, hate, pain, and love are universal experiences that everyone comprehends. When considering Black people, we (society) has modified these experiences because of the dehumanization of the entire race. As James Baldwin states, “There has been no language to describe the horrors of Black life.” We must undeviatingly, transparently acknowledge that mass media intentionally produces images to support, “White supremacy, a patriarchy structure, oppression, exploitation, and overall domination of a race.” The importance of controlling these images is apparent in every commercial, blockbuster film, and sitcom. Growing up watching these films, I have become conditioned to label certain images as good or bad based on my subconscious experiences with imagery. “What is considered to be good is often a reaction to representation created by white people” The misrepresentation races and gender are
The binary of remembering the past and creating a new future is a challenge for Black spectators. It makes viewing any form of media problematic. One has to avoid gazing at glaring inequalities in representation. Black women explicitly have to deal not only with issues of race but also gender equity.

My personal experiences viewing the portrayal of Black men and women in cinema has evolved. The more that I learn about the underlying messages and goals of white supremacy, the less I can enjoy a night at the movies. As a child, I was enamored by superheroes. Superman, Batman, and the uncanny X-men were my favorite. When I began to look closely at the villain’s character, color, and features, I realized subtle supremacist coding. In movies, cartoons, and sitcoms, I started to see many similarities. The one television show that I still enjoy is The Cosby Show, and It’s a Different World. Even within those sitcoms, the undertone of male dominance resonates. I think of possible solutions to the cancer of racism/sexism in media. I believe that a counter-narrative by way of imagery is needed. We must intentionally and consistently ensure that images of Black men women are used in mass media in an impartial manner.

Bibliography

“Black Looks: Race and Representation: Bell Hooks: 9780896084339: Amazon.Com: Books.” Accessed February 19, 2018. https://www.amazon.com/Black-Looks-Representation-Bell-Hooks/dp/0896084337.
“How an Artist Learned About Freedom From ‘The Negro Motorist Green Book’ – The New York Times.” Accessed February 19, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/19/arts/design/how-an-artist-learned-about-freedom-from-the-negro-motorist-green-book.html.

As I discussed in class last week, I’m giving myself the next few weeks to open endedly explore different images that speak to the theme of roots and connection across space, place, time and loss. This week, I returned to the artist collective, Dignidad Rebalde, and went to look at some of their shows. Dignidad Rebalde is an artists’ collective out of California that specifically dedicates itself to making movement art. One example of how they brought visibility to gentrification in the mission is this amazing street sign post here:

More towards the themes I am exploring, I found they had done a show called “Future Ancestors: A Ceremony of Memory.” You can see the full show here.  

Made by artists of color for their community, the show really sparked my interest because it centers it’s inquiry around connection to past and future generations based on reclaiming knowledge of indigenous peoples. I thought of our readings for last week in that the audience is a participant in the piece and the way that they become part of the show is that they are asked to dream. I thought of bell hooks’ quote “From what political perspective do we dream, look, create and take action?” I found these artists to be engaging with this question of connection to ancestors and future generations which gives rise to dreaming, perspective and action. Some examples of how they engaged their community out of their own self inquiry are below:

“Decolonization can only be complete when it is understood as a complex process that involves both the colonizer and the colonized” Samia Nehrez in bell hooks (1992).

This quote in the introduction of bell hooks’ Black Looks: race and representation highlights for me the importance of understanding and acknowledging Latin American racism to help start the road to the restitution of humanity for all Latin Americans. Latin Americans pride themselves as being non-racist, but even in our everyday language we can see the hegemony of racism. In phrases such as “mejora la raza,”(marry someone with light skin and European features to improve the race); “soy un negrito/a pero un negrito/a  fino/a,” (the “ito” softens the hardness of blackness, while “fino” means that he/she has Europeans features);  “somos negros detrás de las orejas” (the implication that even without any African features, in Latin America, almost everyone has African ancestry);  or “tenemos una abuela negra en el armario,” (having a African grandmother is a part of most Latin American families).  Latin Americans are quick to deny their racist views, but a very superficial analysis of everyday language stresses how racism permeates all aspects of life in Latin America. We, as an ethnic group, have, in bell hooks’ words, “internalized racism.” bell hooks challenges African-Americans to imagine themselves differently so they can invite others to “break the colonizing gaze” (1992). However, this colonizing gaze has been internalized by Latin Americans whose ancestry is European, Indigenous and African. This internalization can be seen in the film Pelo Malo, the story of a 9-year-old Venezuelan boy wanting to have straight hair for his school picture. This is despite the fact that the film maker, Mariana Rondon, a woman that because of her phenotype would be considered white in Venezuela, says that the main intent of this film is to explore the issue of identification with respect to gender and race in the “other.” However, the title of the film speaks of racism to many Latin Americans who have suffered the indignity of having been told that they have “pelo malo.”  Rondon says that each audience had interpreted the film as a political, religious, gay or race film.

This film and bell hooks’ concept of “breaking the colonizing gaze” makes me think of how Latin Americans refuse to acknowledge our historical racism and how social policies and politics exemplify this racism. Indigenous groups in Latin America have been forbidden to speak their mother language. Only recently, governments are starting to recognize as national languages indigenous languages other than Spanish and Portuguese. Yet, education in public and private schools and universities is only given in Spanish, Portuguese or English. The hegemony of these languages ensures that the colonizing gaze is still very much part of Latin Americans’ lives.

“…we cannot control our images” bell hooks (1992).

bell hooks describes the desolation of blacks when they succumb to the colonizing gaze. Latin Americans have to succumb to that gaze and internalize it. The years of economic and social upheaval, social injustice and dictatorial governments, in which the richest criollo or mestizo oligarchies govern the “others,” can be explained by the negation and denial of racism in Latin America. Today, Americans are appalled at how Russia has interfered in U.S politics, but for years the U.S has meddled in Latin America politics with the permission of local governments to ensure the continued control of a few powerful families with strong European ancestry.

As a Latina, something that intrigues me greatly is bell hooks’ call for African Americans to break away from the colonizing gaze by seeing beyond the hegemony of the established duality of good and bad and to create new images that are transformative. As I discussed in my last journal entry, Europeans introduced a caste system to Latin American in order to ensure their dominance. I still remember during my social studies class studying some of these classifications such as Spaniard, Criollo, Mestizo and Mulatto. Looking back, I no longer wonder why these classifications manifested in my everyday life when I heard my family discussing my unruly hair, “mi pelo malo.” Now, I am grateful for mi pelo malo and thank those women who don their beautiful afros.

“…her anger had no voice” bell hooks (1992).

In Chapter Seven, the Oppositional Gaze, bell hooks describes how black women, by not identifying with the Hollywood images of female blackness or lack of these images, created a space in which the stereotype of White femaleness by this industry could be dissected. bell hooks, in discussing African American female film maker Julie Dash, describes how Dash stressed that being a spectator with an oppositional gaze made her a filmmaker. African American women spectators such as Dash found pleasure in dissecting the films without identifying with the female protagonist.

Perhaps I can create a space in my project in which Latino/as can dissect forms of racism in our countries such as language, advertisement, movies or telenovelas (soap operas). The crux is how to break away from the hegemony of the dichotomy of good and bad representation and in the process create a space for transformation.

In the article, How an Artist Learned About Freedom from ‘the Negro Motorist Green Book’ by Meredith Mendelson (2018), artist Derrick Adams uses as inspiration “the Negro Motorist Green Book” published by Victor H. Green for his show “Sanctuary” at the Museum of Arts and Design. His articulation of how Green and Jacob Lawrence’s “Migration Series”’ symbolic liberation has come into question during these tense times reminds me of a video a colleague of mine shared on Facebook in which a young African American woman visiting an AppleBees in Independence, Missouri for the first time was accused by a white waitress of leaving without paying her check on a previous visit. Police were involved and asked her to leave the premises. The young woman could be heard crying, protesting that she had never been there before but the policemen paid no attention to her and asked her to stop behaving emotionally and to leave immediately. Being the “other” is being exposed to all kinds of dangers in which you can be accused without any proof and your only crime is that you are not White.

I hope to create a space in my project in which we can confront our racism as Latinos and start to heal the wounds that ail us.

The Meredith Mendolsohn article about Derrick Adams and the Green Books helped deepen my understanding of arts-based research.  I appreciated that it traced his project from the very beginning. This helped me understand how an artist/researcher might happen upon something that inspires them and then weave that into their own pre-existing ouvre.

I found it enlightening when Mendolsohn called the Green Books a “creative point of departure” for Adams.  And how they merged with subjects that were already “continuously percolating in his work”.  I like the idea of making art out of research that you are already knee-deep into.  It seems like sifting through archives and writing for months about a subject might not be as illuminating (or fun) as creating art around it. In the caption on page 6 of the article there is a quote from Adams: “I’ve thought a lot about barriers, and accessibility, and obstacles, and perseverance.”  Perhaps he was thinking about those things before he embarked on this project, but now is able to see how they interact and intersect.  A single piece of his, for example “Come on by Mr. Hoodwrench” (9), evokes different objects/subjects all at the same time which shows how he combines big ideas into complex themes.

I’m inspired by how he physically used the Green Books. He “includes wallpaper printed from pages of the Green Books, but that’s about the only literal reference to the guides” (8). But also how he imagines walking with or taking a journey with African Americans who actually used the Green Books.  This hearkens back to the Pink article we read last week.  While she described recording a literal walk, Adams uses his imagination and visually represents what he “sees”—with collage, painting, building, etc. In my project I could include text from Kerouac’s books in some part of my collages.

Lastly, I thought it was cool that Adams includes parts of his own personality in his work. For instance, “Hats, too, appear frequently in his work, in performances, videos, painting and sculpture, and he is rarely seen without one” (11).  Having your own interests represented or reoccuring in your work is not something you can do with typical research.  And as someone who has a hard time “keeping it formal” in academic writing, this is a welcome relief.

P.S. I’m so excited to share my project ideas on Wednesday!

Hi all:

Here is the video recording from our third class. It is a necessarily compressed version. I have a much larger video file and a separate audio file that I can make available to you (via Dropbox) if the attached video is not sufficient (I haven’t reviewed it).  I thought the class was terrific, and you may find the file useful to your projects both because of the audio and the imagery. I think we should embrace Amanda’s idea of, on a weekly basis, bringing into class images relevant to your project that we can project (if you can put them on a flash drive, we don’t need to keep switching computers). Not everyone needs to bring in images every week since it is unlikely that we will have time to review them all  (especially when we have presenting guests).

I think next week, rather than look at my work, we will begin with Lisa’s presentation and then go to the presentations of Anna, Dora and Regina who were’t able to come to our last class.

Thanks

Gene

Class video, 2-14-18 smaller

I wanted to also add this image. It is some ways articulates my sentiment about the importance of considering various modalities when examining the lived experiences of Black males in education.

Gene: I am thinking of combining a video and pictures to capture retention efforts by the college community as we work together towards academic excellence and achievement for the advisement center webpage.

I am in dicussion with my supervisor to see if I can explore these options.

Gene’s comments:

I thought you all responded brilliantly to the article by Sarah Pink and the one about Matta Clark . Both Pink and Matta Clark are activists, though Pink’s activism (at least in this article) is much more one-on-one whereas Matta Clark is socially-politically engaged. Pink is seeking to gain an embodied understanding of the co-participant in her study, Matta Clark is trying to change the world. Nick, when discussing Pink, talks about Heidegger’s phenomenological directive to “be in with”, which is similar to Pink’s “walking with” in order to acquire an embodied understanding of the “other.” Such a process very different from merely observing, collecting data, interviewing and concluding as researchers usually do. The idea, as many of you well expressed, is to experience the life of another; this cannot be neatly categorized though we need categories to talk about experience. Art, maybe, allows us to overflow categorical thinking, to make all borders permeable, so that experience itself is felt rather than described. I like Shawn’s insistence that we “infuse the arts into all components of [my] research.” Shawn also emphasizes the cultural bias of the sensory categories we use, and I’m curious as to how his own project will address that.

Still, it is sobering in this context to remember that Heidegger and Beuys (mentioned in the Matta Clark article) were both Nazis. Who, exactly, were they “in with?” Beuys was young and arguably became transformed (though he never addressed his Nazi participation as far as I know). There own histories, however, emphasizes how difficult it is to really walk with someone whatever your theoretical stance. It maybe also emphasizes Pink’s emphasis on “embodied” knowing, through all the inseparable senses acting together, rather than merely intellectual comprehension. In this regard, Lisa Delpit, in her article “The Silent Dialog” writes that we do not see and hear through our eyes and ears but rather through our beliefs, which makes it both frightening and almost impossible to really be able to walk in the shoes of another. (From Amanda’s text it seems it may be difficult to even walk with oneself. )

. Anna, in her photo, is arguably not walking with her children. She is behind them, and how is that distance bridged by the look back of her daughter? Anna is (gently) traumatized by the idea that her children will go out on their own leaving her behind, her children looking back at her maybe just see a great adventure. Amanda writes about “interdependence in loss” and I wonder if that idea resonates with Anna. Meanwhile, Regina walks with the spirit of Kerouac today, but time and space and imagination still separate the two. How might visual and poetic approaches mediate that temporal-spatial distance.

Trauma seems central in many of the projects outlined. In Anna’s case it is still potential trauma that seems inevitable but also natural. But for Dora the trauma is embodied historically and it is dangerous. In the Latino culture, she posits, the oppressors and the oppressed walk together (Pink) literally. They can’t go anywhere without one another. This is normal, so normal that the trauma may not even be noticeable. And I wonder if we all to some degree carry within us the trauma of the oppressor, the trauma of hegemony, the double who we take for granted. Again the categories of oppressed and oppressor are not neatly divisible, they flow through each other. How might that be visibly conveyed?

Amanda’s trauma is both personal and cultural, and she needed to walk with herself “for miles,” not necessarily to make sense of it but to “emerge from submersion” (Freire) in order to recognize her situation and change it (Freire). (How could death by pancreatic cancer make sense?) Amanda includes stunning photos in her post and asks, “What if there were no good and no bad but just experience?” – a very Buddhist take on existence that sees death, in whatever variety, as fleeting and not distinct from life. Ee cummings wrote, “dying is fine)but Death

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baby
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wouldn’t like

Death if Death
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Amanda’s photos made me think about the relationship between strength, fragility and compassion as we confront our inner oppressors and other conditions that seem cruel and meaningless. These are ideas I’ve been working with in some of my own work and I think they also resonate with all the work mentioned in these posts and with Shawn’s previous discussion about Obama.

Thoughts on process

Anna: I think the idea of including the voices of your children makes a lot of sense though I wonder how you will deal the danger of sentimentality, especially with your youngest child. You wrote insightfully about Pink’s writing, but part of the trick, I think, is understanding the multi-sensory quality of even a photograph without words attached. In your talks with your children, you might have them remember the feeling of that moment (the sounds, the textures, the weather, the smells) all evoked by the photograph. What does the photo evoke that it doesn’t literally show but depends on the viewers experience of a similar experience.

I’m still thiking about the idea of privilege that you bring up (makes me think of our discussion with Nick) but haven’t come to any clear ideas about it. I do think that some of the students I know in Newark look back with maybe a different sensory experience (and aspirations, and loss) then maybe your children do, some leave home much earlier, some are independent already when very young. It is interesting to think about the different cultural/econonomic/historical/geographical perspectives on children leaving to go out on their own both voluntarily and involuntarily

You could use your images in the ethnographic (and visual methods) the way Wendy Luttrrell does in Photovoice (you might want to look at her articles ahead of her visit), but you might also want to mess with the photos in some ways – we could talk about that in class on Wednesday. I wonder if there are stock photos or other photos that embrace the same theme and might be worth looking at. Or photos from other places and times. Or paintings? Or songs?

Dora

I’m intrigued by the activist tone of your text – making room for viewers to not only reflect but also to voice their own feelings. This could be very interesting, and maybe especially so if it was somehow tied to a performance where a large Latino/a population was present. Or an interactive exhibit of some type. Not only, of course are Latinos with the features you mention deemed prettier, more desirable etc (even often to themselves, bring up issues of hegemony), they are also more successful. How could you make this project participatory? Might your work elicit the trauma of oppression carried within?

I couldn’t make out the image you attached but look forward to looking at it in class together. Maybe you can find a better resolution of the same image?

Lisa

You mentioned combining video, pictures and drawings – are you thinking about doing so with the Advisor Center? A participatory action research project in which images are central? Or an installation a la Matta Clark? You didn’t talk about your project in this post.

Shawn

You don’t explicitly lay out a project, but you do mention creating outlets for marginalized groups to express themselves. I look forward to hearing how you might create or co-create such an outlet that uses visual methodologies or arts-based practices.

Amanda

I wondered to what you were connecting the sensory experience of death. Being interconnected and vibrant, it sounds alive reminding me a bit of Spinoza’s ideas. Of course even walking alone you were with the river and with your mother, even in her absence. The presence of her absence was palpable. What was it about the walking? The duration? The rhythm? How would images convey this. Would it need music or silence? Were you fragile as you walked or/and did walking fortify you? What is it you want to evoke? Those photos speak of strength and weakness and of so much love. But the subjects were older making death possibly less cruel. I’m curious to hear how the Van Gogh painting fits in.

I think of the images of LaToya Ruby Frazier, vulnerable and naked next to the steel mills yet staring out unashamed. Is that you felt walking with the river? Is it a struggle to make that experience neither good nor bad? Roots and struggle? You didn’t talk much about imagery.

Regina

“Political and provocative, tangible and meaningful;” I couldn’t think of a better combination! The idea of walking with Kerouac is crazy in a good way, I’m not sure how you would do that with your own photographs or collaging photographs from his time though I’m looking forward to hearing your ideas. Kerouac’s ON the road character was partly fictionalized, so you have that space to play around in, maybe imagining walks he didn’t actually take.

I’m not sure I understand addressing it to “real people” who are “Kerouac’s fellow young people who felt boxed in.” Are you addressing the project to real people in the past?

Maybe it might work to try to capture the freedom that Kerouac sought, the sense of not wanting to be boxed in. Kerouac, in his search for that freedom, carried plenty of his own devil inside, gleefully self-sabotaging himself and discarding others. Is that sense of freedom important today? Can we relate? Can you relate? How as a woman do you relish the freedom he used so often to demean women? Is that important? You quote Pink (quoting someone else I think) that words are ‘nearly empty of meaning,’ but you’re a poet and poetry is meaningful because it is metaphoric and musical, and that metaphorical music plus imagery might capture the freedom of Kerouac in ways that could be fascinating.

You might also think about taking excerpts from Kerouac’s work that are important to you and visualizing them.

Nick

The idea of analyzing children’s picture book sounds to me like more of a scholarly study than an artistic adventure. When you begin to talk about cutting and rearranging them in some way – that sounds more interesting though I can’t quite envision it yet or understand the conversation between the books. What stories could you create (visually and textually – and maybe musically) through that type of a method? Could you make an attempt with two picture books that are on your radar for this project? Of course you could make your own picture book. Maybe we can flush out the idea in class a bit.

Red lining is called redlining because they visually drew on city maps in red lines to map out the borders where nonwhites could or could not live. So it was visual. Now, redlining is not accepted practice, but of course segregation happens in less explicit ways and is justified in different ways. I love the idea of creating maps that focus on boundaries or barriers in a particular neighborhood. If I remember, I’ll bring in some books on maps of different types.

Lauren:

I’m curiously waiting for your post. I just recently happened upon an artist whose work is about migration. His website is http://fidenciofperez.com. Thought it might be worth looking at.