Ava's Self Portrait Performance

 

For my self portrait performance, I asked friends and family to write "You see my face, color, and ethnicity but did you know..." and follow with different facts and ideas about who they are as individuals. I felt that this was a great portrayal of topics that we have studied such as self identity, diversity, and women empowerment. 

Many people get looked at in the public eye and are only seen as the color of their skin, what race and background they come from, how their hair is done, and what they are wearing. Although this happens to everyone, it is more common for women to be judged and to feel as though we need to live a certain stereotype. The New York Times article, Overlooked No More: Ana Mendieta, a Cuban Artist Who Pushed Boundaries states, "She urged viewers to disregard their gender, race, or other defining societal factors and instead connect with the humanity they share with others." I wanted to continue this message through my piece by showing there is much more to a person under the surface. 

    The women shown in these photos come from have different ethnicities such as: Filipino, Puerto Rican, Spaniard,  Black, and more. I wanted to represent different types of women and capture who they are as people. As we learned in class, there is a great amount of false representation of women in art and they are portrayed un-realistically. Two quotes I found from Hyperallergic's article, The Photographed, Collaged, and Painted Muses of Mickalene Thomas, were, "Thomas is working in the midst of much crucial discussion in the art world about underrepresentation and misrepresentation of black bodies and female bodies in the western art canon and the contemporary media." and "By portraying real women with their own unique history, beauty and background, I’m working to diversify the representations of black women in art.” These quotes inspired me to create my assignment by following Mickalene Thomas's ideas and thoughts on women in the media and to showcase women as the beautiful individuals they are by allowing you to see what their personalities and who they are as people are like.