Lecture #2: JUSTINE KURLAND

Before I begin my review, I'd like to say that I love that all the visiting artists so for have, "dealt with feminist issues." All the "girlhood topics," HAVE been different from the many white male lectures I always and regularly attend. Don't get me wrong here: I love men. But seeing that ALL of my teachers, except for two (Vita and Amanda), have been male for every single one of my classes, for every single year, for over the past four years of my college education here at VCU, that it's nice and a bit refreshing, if I dare say, to see and hear about work from a female perspective.

So thanks Paul for the diversity in the lectures.

Enough moaning...

In some ways I wish my meeting with Justine Kurland could have occurred before seeing her lecture, because then I might have been a bit less nervous/anxious/terribly scared to talk to her. After hearing Justine discuss her work, I realized, not that I didn't already assume, that a successful Yale photo graduate was going to be very intimidating to talk to about my own half-developed, not completely finished work. But I thoroughly enjoyed her lecture and the ease in which she talked about her work. Her images are truly magical, like a fairytale world of women not chained down by commercialism or materialism. Their like little Gardens of Edens - without Adam.
I appreciated that she showed several images from every body of work she created - it was great to see the progression between each series and the similarties and differences within them. I found it interesting that when Justine created a body of work that steered away from the female fairytales, like the Communes and Rennaissance people, she would immediately go back to them, as if to recover her lost Utopia.
I related to Justine's series of teenage girls. Even though some of the images were only displayed for a few minutes, I could recognize and point out things I use to do when I was younger. There were images where girls were bicycling with their feet, braiding hair, and drawing letters on backs, (which I had wanted to believe they were doing, and was excited to hear that that really was what they were doing.)
It was interesting to hear Justine talk about exploiting the people in her images. That she falls in love with her subject matter- she loves them, yet exploits them, because she loves them. In many ways I feel it would be natural to want to protect the things you love, to shield them, hide them from the world, not expose them to the world. It's such a strange thing to think about, to take something you care dearly for and exploit it. But it is also a very passionate way of expressing your love for something - that you care for it so much, you have to show it to the world, search for it, live it, and make work about it.

November Lecture #1: Midge Potts

This month, Midge Potts was invited by VCU's Queer Action group to lecture here at the school. Midge, now popular for her protests and super-leftist political beliefs, originally became known for her 2006 political campaign for Congress in Missouri under the Republican party. Midge Potts stood out from the other candidates for many reasons - she made all of her campaign signs out of cardboard, dumpster-diving for all the materials, handmade all of her pins from old bottle caps, and even wrote her own press releases - But the biggest difference between Midge and the other potential congressmen was that she was a transgender candidate, not a white male.
Midge's campaign was, "Transcending Traditional Politics." She knew that many people would not take her seriously, and that the best way to be heard and get publicity was to play up her gender identity. Even though Midge felt her running for Congress was a bit of a stunt, she was/is really serious about politics and her beliefs. Though she mostly associates with the Green Party, Midge ran as a Republican because she believed it was the only way she would make herself known. Missouri is rather conservative - no one even really looks at any other candidates besides the Republican ones, and the Congressman she was running against had been re-elected before. In order to be known, Midge had to be in the same party to recieve a bit of attention.
Even though Midge lost, she came in third with 4,275 votes - 8% of the votes. Now Midge Potts works for CodePink, an organization of women for peace, where she became famous for interrupting Valerie Plame's testimony before the House. The video circulated through the media and landed her an interview on CNN. She has been jailed 6 times for Civil Disobedience, and has only had a couple issues with the police accepting her transgender lifestyle. At first, the government booked her in the Mens side - aggressively searching her by male police officers, and placing her in a cell with other men. Now after having been arrested a few times, Midge is given the respect she deserves, and is placed with the women and sometimes given her own cell.
The lecture was incredibly interesting. When Midge spoke, she seemed a bit out of it - A bit air-headed? Tired? Even drunk, perhaps? She'd forget where she was going, stop mid-sentence for longer then neccessary... but what she had to say was incredibly intelligent - she knew a lot about politics, the current state the government was in, and had very strong beliefs about how to make a positive change. She was able to laugh at herself, joking about her lifestyle, which showed confidence in her ability to be an influential/distracting aspect of our political system.

The Hand Book

Submissions!

Here are my poorly documented submissions...

Interview : Dr. Shawn Utsey

Last week I met with Dr. Shawn Utsey, the chair of the African-American Studies Department here at VCU, to discuss whiteness and the focus of his studies. Dr. Utsey, who is also a professor in the Psychology department, aims his research at studying the psychological and physical effects of race-related issues on African-Americans. Having heard him speak at the Jean 6 open forum, I knew Dr. Utsey would be great to talk to about whiteness.
Originally I was hesitant to contact him in fear of speaking inappropiately, appearing uneducated about my topic, or even offending him. But i desperately needed to talk to someone who was an expert on race-relations, to confirm that I was making sense of all the information I had obtained. Also, this was also the first time I had discussed my project with someone
who saw and was aware of, the other side of whiteness, the point of view in which many, if not most white people struggle to understand.
Dr. Utsey was very welcoming, willing to answer my questions and openly discuss my concerns. The meeting started with Dr. Utsey casually talking about studies and research on whiteness. At the beginning of his teaches as the head of the department, Dr. Utsey taught a race-relation class that talked a bit about whiteness. He said he found it incredibly difficult to teach and explain whiteness as an African-American male, because white students would feel as if Dr. Utsey was overanaylizing situations - that whiteness was something created by African-Americans in search of sympathy and pity. He also realized that in being the chair of the department, teaching this class created an awkward relationship between himself and the students before he had even established a relationship with them. After teaching the class, students felt guarded with him and a bit defensive, especially some white students, who felt he was pointing the finger at them, blaiming them for racism. He no longer teaches the class for that very reason. It is now taught by a white female.
Interestlying enough, even with the reaction he recieved from his students while teaching whiteness, Dr. Utsey felt that it was harder for a white person to inform white people about whiteness then for a black person to. He talked about the issue in which white people tend to feel more comfortable around other white people - that they can open up to them, that all white people have an understanding with one another about how they feel about African-Americans. And when one of their fellow white friends tries to address and explain whiteness, they react shocked, because that person is not black, they're white - so how do they know? Dr. Utsey believes it's harder to hear something about your race, from someone of else of that race.
I explained to him my intent in trying to expose whiteness to people who are not aware of it - in wanting to make people think about their everyday environment, the underlying white power within, and to perhaps evaluate their lives and consider the reasons for why they are where they are at today. He cautioned me to not approach the issue in an aggressive manner. If I were to start pointing the finger at people, saying, "see! see! You do this! You've probably thought that, or said that!" Then I wouldn't be successful in reaching my audience. I need to make a suddle approach in which I don't come off accusatorily.
I also asked Dr. Utsey about the "dots" I was working on. I told him my concerns about the images no longer being honest because I started to seek out places that I thought would be predominately black or white. But he told me not be afraid of having bias in my work - that it's personal and also about my own discovery of whiteness, and that in my assumptions or generalizations of picking these specific places, I would find honesty.
The most important thing Dr. Utsey told me was to not be afraid. I told him that when I informed some people I was meeting with him, they questioned me, asking, " Are you sure that's a good idea? Don't you think it's wrong to single him out because he's black?"
He said to not give in to the fear of others. That it's okay to make mistakes because I'll learn from them. The most important thing in understanding race-related issues is accepting and acknowledging my white privledge. That if everyone could just be aware of that, it would be enough. Dr. Utsey gave me the encouragement and confidence I needed to continue my efforts and help me move past my initial hesitancies.

Kara Walker: My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love

Over fall break, I spent one very quick day in NYC. Luckily I made time for one exhibit, (the one I HAD to see) Kara Walker at the Whitney. The images are powerful and engaging - she creates a narrative using simple sihouettes, (simple in that they're black paper cut-outs), but made with such detail that they come to life. I had seen images of her cut-out's before, but I had never seen Walker's videos or sketches. I found the sketches to be the most honest because they weren't as planned out or as precise as the cut-outs or videos. Some of the images incorporated Walker's writings - reactions and reflections about her images. They revealed her frustrations and thoughts, as if she was analyzing her own work.
Though Kara Walker has recieved negative criticism about her work, especially from African-American artist Betye Saar, who believes that Kara's work does nothing productive for the Black community, I think her work has made an attempt to help move past racism. Some people believe that the best thing for abolishing racism is to forget the past - to not discuss it because we'll just keep reliving it and having to start over. The problem with ignoring the past, is that it was never really discussed in the first place. Resurfacing racially charged images like Kara Walker's exaggerated portraits, is not something artists like Kara Walker are content with doing, but it forces the audience to engage the images and discuss the issue at hand.
There are some scholars who believe that moving past racism requires a "color-blind" society - one that would encourage equality because color would not be acknowledged. Though being color-blind might seem ideal, it ignores everything that makes equality impossible for our society. White people have an advantage of 400 years of being privledged, and those issues have never been addressed. It doesn't make sense to ignore the advantages that have allowed whites to be the "dominant" race, and claim that everyone is at an even, leveled, playing field. Being color-blind only shows that someone is not aware of their whiteness, aware of their privledged status. It also asks for people of color to ignore race as well. But how can someone of color ignore it, when they are constantly reminded of it everyday? Wether it be in advertising, television, school, the workplace - white dominance is everywhere, yet invisible to those who are not aware of it. These issues need to be talked about and acknowledged, before anyone can even begin to request a color-blind society. Kara Walker's work asks us to engage these issues, regardless of the difficulty in accepting the past for its truth.

Oct. Lecture #2: Su Friedrich

My only complaint about Su Friedrich's lecture was that we didn't get much of a chance to see her films! She talked. And talked. And would even describe scenes - not even just set them up, but almost competely give them away. I think her films were amazing, even just from the 5 minute clips we saw, but I wish she would have just introduced them, then let the films speak for themselves. I did enjoy listening to Su talk about the process that went behind her films and the method in which she worked. For some of her films, Su said she would only have an idea and then begin to collect images for that idea to see how images would work together. It was nothing more then that - she didn't have everything completely planned out, her method dealt a lot with the process in acquiring the imagery for her films, then creating a narrative with the clips she collected.
Even though the films dealt with personal issues, the work wasn't restricted to just that - it spoke to bigger issues that everyone could understand. I find it difficult to make work about my life and have it be interesting to someone else - but Su used her life as inspiration to create films that were interesting and inciteful.

Race: The Power of Illusion

After last critique, I realized I needed to try and start with a clean slate. I think Matt's comments were the most beneficial - I really hadn't pushed any new ideas that hadn't been done or seen before - the images were only representations of racism - it spoke very little of whiteness, which i've found really difficult to make work about, seeing that it is everywhere yet completely invisible at the same time. I've been trying to educate myself on current issues dealing with racism, mainly those I get from the media, and I think I've just gotten caught up in the things I've been reading, which don't really speak to the idea I'm trying to express. Ideally, I want my images to expose white "normalities" to show their underlying racism. Like the flesh-toned band-aid - Something so overlooked, yet obviously catered towards a white society. I want my images to be so effective that even extremely white anti-racist liberals might even question their own anti-racist beliefs. (I know that's a stretch, but wouldn't it be nice...) So in order to make better images, I've decided to increase my researching efforts in hopes of finding the best way to express whiteness.
This week, I watched Race: The Power of Illusion, an educational video about the history of race. Race - does not exist. It was something created for economic purposes, to establish white people as superior. When Thomas Jefferson wrote that all men are created equal, he did not include blacks because at that time, they were not even considered people - they were chattel, things to be owned as property. From then on, the white government has been created to maintain that white superiority by not giving equality to all people. After WWII, when the G.I. Bill was established, it gave veterans the opportunity to buy a home and start a family. The same opportunity was not given to blacks. In the documentary, one Vietnam Veteran who moved to Levittown, believes that this was the government's missed opportunity to establish equality. If only they had provided housing for blacks, then perhaps everything would be different today. When President Lyndon B. Johnson eliminated all statements that denied blacks their rights, blacks were then able to move to the suburbs. But within a few years, whites moved out of the neighborhoods, making the homes undesirable to other white people. This became a selling point for realtors. They would inform whites that someone not white moved in next door and would ask, "Do you want to live next to negro?" Then the whites would say no, sell their house, and abandon the neighborhood to be ignored by the government without recieving the funds and attention it needed.
In the 1930's, during the Olympics, Jesse Owens, an African American athlete, won 4 gold metals in track. This shocked white people because he was black - and he was better! After this, scientists set out to determine what made Owens different from white people. They thought, maybe he has an extra muscle in his leg because he;s black? Or maybe he has a genetic dispostion to being a good runner because his ancestors are from Africa and they must have run a lot in the jungles? The search to find the reason why Owens was better was pointless and ridiculous- it had nothing to do with the color of his skin because THERE ARE NO GENETIC MARKERS THAT DEFINE RACE. The human race is the most closely genetic species in the world! Not one DNA can only be found within one race. Someone considered white can have DNA that closely matches someone considered black. It does not matter where you are from, or what you look like. Race only exists in that we are told certain physical attributes define a single person to a certain category, whether it be white, black, asian, or hispanic. Race is only an illusion!

Lecture #1 of October: Kate Gilmore

Kate Gilmore's work was best exemplified when she said, "How can you punch someone in the face and be funny?"
Her highly amusing and sometimes difficult to watch performance videos were amazing and entertaining. I loved her casual aura, how comfortable she was in the lecture, and the ease at which she presented her work. Even though she's become very popular, she did not seem arrogant or pretentious. She talked to the audience in a way I could relate and understand. What I love about her videos is the cleanliness and simplicity in which they appear. I know that the process is not simple or easy to acheive, but the ideas are clear and decipherable. For example, in Heartbreaker, Gilmore literally and physically takes on that role - she tears apart a wooden heart with an ax.
Her work is also rather kitschy. I felt I could really relate to her aesthetic and the thought process that went into the formal elements of the videos. Gilmore had said she was very much aware of her color choices and the things she wore in the films because she wanted the colors to complement one another. In my work, I am also attentive to the colors and overall aesthetic of my images. The titles also lend themselves to the kitsch factor of her work. Titles like Cake Walk, Main Squeeze, Star Bright, Star Might, reference things we are all familiar with and really add to the quirkiness of the videos.
Another interesting aspect I found about Gilmore's work, is that some of the tasks she takes on are not accomplished. I was really intrigued by this because even so, the work is still successful without the success of conquering the obstacle she set out for herself. It makes me wonder what the videos would be like if all of them were a "success." I feel that her work would probably be more aggressive and not as light-hearted because there would be more determination and a stronger competitive outlook in order to accomplish a task. Gilmore talked instead about her work being about the progression of events, the struggle and committment to get what you want, and I found it interesting that none of the works were deemed "failures" even though the tasks were not achieved.
Even with that, I could not get enough of With Open Arms, the video with the superficial pageant-y girl getting tomatoes thrown at her. It killed me. That obnoxious face - the exaggerated gestures - it was just great. I'd love to have that video for everytime I felt shitty.

The Westchester Elevator

The freakishly small elevator in my building has been notorious for having some of the most vulgar and ridiculous graffiti covering its walls. Every once in a while, when the realtor has recieved enough complaints about the horrific condition of the elevator and the building, they'll paint it. What's fun about when the elevator gets painted, is the anticipation of who or what will be written first. And to the all the tenants surprise, the first thing to be found in the elevator was this:


A beautiful portrait of an African woman. As much as I loved this portrait, I was nervous about what would be done to it, how some idiot would deface it or what would be written about it on the walls of the elevator. The mysterious tenant who supplied the image, also put up a piece of paper advising people to write on that, rather then the elevator walls. In a few hours, it was filled with comments, many of them, not surprisingly, directed towards the image on the wall.

It makes me wonder what would have been said if the image was not of an African woman, but of a white woman. If someone were to take the current image down and replace it with one of a white woman, I could see some comments saying things like, "that's better!" or "Thank God!" or something to that extent. But if the original image put up was of a white woman, I can guarantee there would not be any comments about the color of her skin. If that were the case, it would only showcase the "normalcy" associated with being white, that things to note about the image would probably be directed toward something she was wearing, the color of her hair, etc.
Now I'm interested in turning my elevator into somewhat of an experimental space - perhaps also adding a few images and seeing what would be said about them. It would be the ultimate critique for any work - anonymous comments left by people who probably care very little about what's being done or what they say.

The elevator has progressed -

Homie Spumoni??

This blackface act,

http://youtube.com/watch?v=r5j10nHAeIU

was turned into this:

"Meet Renato: a pasta-loving, Dean Martin workshipping Italian-America living la dolce vita and working at his papa's Little Italy Deli. Until his African-Amreican birth parents show up, claiming he's their long-lost son Leroy. Now that he's suddenly black, "Leroy" tries his best to shoot hoops and dig hip-hop, but all he really wants is for everyone to just get along!"

Goodness.

Blackatcha!

Mark Steven Greenfield, currently the director for the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery for the Department of Cultural Affairs, uses nineteenth and twentieth century photos of vaudeville and minstrel show performers. Blackface, an act in which a person covers thier face with black paint as a mockery of "foolish" African Americans, was long ago accepted as a form of satire and comedy. Greenfield's images of such acts incorporated with text in the form of an eye examination chart, first make the viewer dechipher the sentence, then use those words as a guide to read the image. In this series of work cleverly titled Blackacha, Greenfield hopes the viewer will examine the images as not a thing of the past, but as an issue of today. The juxtapostion of the current day slang to the older images brings that issue forward, making the viewer aware of the existing consequences of racial stereotypes.
In his introduction to his website, (Markstevengreenfield.com), Mark Steven Greenfield states, "the creation of stereotype was essential in maintaining white America's illusion of superiority." This comment rings true to the idea that whites find it difficult to feel connected to or associated with a culture. White identity has been built on supressing other cultures and colors. Being white means to be privledged, superior, or always right.
Interestingly enough, in one of my readings, Whiteness, A Wayward Construction, Tyler Stalling writes that Blackface minstrelsy, "began with black slaves who danced in mocking imitation of thier masters. Whites missed the critique, however, and when they mimicked the dance of thier slaves, they highlighted THEIR buffoonery." This statement is kind of a big deal - instead of Blackface being a mockery of blacks, its a mockery of whites! Unforntunately, Blackface has too long been engrained as a racist stereotype of blacks for it to all of a sudden be seen as a mockery of whites. But the initial idea of it's history has now become more interesting to think about...

Renne Cox

Renee Cox is a controversial African American artist born in Jamacia, but based out of New York. In one series, "Surprise, surprise. Stereotypes still exist," Cox uses text to showcase the many ways in which stereotypes are prevalent in society. Recently I've become more aware of text and the way in which it guides an image, detracts, or even overpowers it. In this series, Cox only uses text, but is aware of the words that hold more strength then others. In order to highlight those specific words, Cox boldens and changes the color from yellow to white. At a distance, one could still get the impact of the image without reading the entire piece.

Even though I want text to be apart of my images, I want the images to stand on thier own and carry their own weight, without the words to guide them. I need to consider many things with text - font, size, color and placement, I want it to have impact like Renee Cox's text, but I still want it to merely supplement the image.

Whiteness vs. Stanford Prison Experiment

Mitra Tabrizian and Andy Golding

Mitra Tabrizian and Andy Golding's The Blues, 1986-1987, is one of the best works I've seen about Whiteness - it incorporates many different components of racial issues, touching on advertising, cinema, and social issues of race. The photographs cleverly comment on African American's role in the media - how they are frequently portrayed as the weaker race, the bad guy, or the odd man out. And the quotes! "He played right into her hands. But her world was still out of his reach." Referencing to the invisible limitations put on African American's in society - how this invisible power, though it appears to be welcoming and for equality, is the reason they are supressed.
The images, if not studied, appear to be no different then anything else we see on TV or in the movies. I think the title "The Blues," is so fitting for a piece about racial issues - it alludes to the subject matter of the photos, and to the blue tint of each image. The work is incredibly powerful, yet not offensive or over the top, and has been very influential in my studies of Whiteness.

Lecture #2: Jena 6 open discussion

Later last week I attended an open forum organized for those who wanted to speak or be informed about Jena 6. At the forum I was able to hear from the perspective of those being oppressed, rather then from people who had never felt racism. Generally when people not afflicted by racism talk about how to resolve the issue of racism, they believe that everyone should stop focusing on color, essentially be "color blind," and that people should instead focus on being united as Americans, or as a human race, or seen as individuals. Even though these things are all ideal, they are completely unrealistic. From what I learned from the forum, it is impossible to solve racism within those terms. After the Civil Rights movement, affirmative action was put into place to help create an equal balance between minorities and whites. But affirmative action only creates the illusion that everything is equal - it's become an excuse for those who believe that racism does not exist - if it's been enacted, then everyone is on a level playing field, right? Not quite.
Racism still exists because a white invisible power still exists. It is hard to alleviate racism when the dominating group creating it is unaware of doing so. It's frustrating to see that everytime an incident like the Jena 6 occurs, African American's have to rally together to reevaluate thier satus in the world. But the answer to their problems comes from the source that's keeping them down.
At the forum one student made a great point. He informed everyone of the statistic that African American's applying for jobs that have "black" names, like Tamika or Darnell, automatically have a lesser chance of getting that job over a white person. And when he presented this information to a white person, they suggested, why not just change your name? It reminded me a lot of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd6LYiJYvG0, (please copy and paste, seeing that I still cannot figure out how to post a video clip...)
When white people suggest everyone just act "American" or as an "equal", they are suggesting for people to be more like them, to loose their style, their history, and everything they associate with. Knowing that Whiteness is a fairly new thing, I can only hope that eventually it will become something everyone will be aware of - and perhaps then we can start to really break down the issues within our society.

On Campus Lecture #1 : Jena 6

This past Thursday, September 20th, VCU's NAACP held a rally for the Jena 6 in Shafer Court. First off, I was surprised that it was not a very publicized event - I had no knowledge of the rally, I was just fortunate to hear the speakers as I was leaving class. Also, there weren't very many people at the rally - most of the people watching were just passing by, curious of the small crowd and camera crew.
The rally started off with the head of VCU's NAACP stating the facts of the Jena 6 situation, then some encouraging words from professor Shawn Utsey from the African American Studies Department. After that, the floor was open to questions and comments. The most important question asked was, WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO AFTER TODAY? Everytime an incredibly racist situation occurs, people rally in anger and support of the oppressed, but nothing is ever done afterwards to further the fight. Racism still exists, and will continue to exist, unless serious actions are made to try and make people aware of the issue at hand.
The rally was quite an eye-opener. It was the first time I had been in a situation where I could hear African Americans openly speak about their concerns about racism. I felt very honored to be an "ally" in the fight against racism, but also very saddened and frustrated by the endless struggle that people have to endure in order to be equal. I wanted to voice my concerns, but I was unable to do so without feeling completely overwhelmed with emotion and grief.

Jacquelyne's bodyscapes

Having spent a lot of time with Jacquelyne over the past few years, I've become very familiar with her work. Her investigations of the body, from bodyscapes to body distortions, shows her wide range of studies dealing with the one genre.
Jacquelyne's work is very strong aesthetically - she is capable of making absolutely mesmerizing images. One of her series for George Allen's digital two class, had a series of images taken with a polariod camera. The final results were amazing. THe photographs were very hazy, had a reddish tint to them, and a dream-like. effect. She then scanned them in and printed them at about 30"x30".
I look forward to seeing the progression of her work for senior portfolio. This is the most inciteful approach she has taken to her investigation of the body by far, so I'm interested to see where it goes.

Trading Places

I just recently watched a movie with Eddie Murphy and Dan Arkroyd called Trading Places, made in 1983. The film plot centers around 2 completely different characters - Arkroyd's snobby, rich and ridiculous white man, Louis Winthorpe, and Murphy's poor, loud and homless black man, Billy Ray. The characters are ridiculously exaggerated stereotypes of each color, but I felt it was an appropiate portrayal so that ignorant people would get the point of the film - that these characters were exaggerations of stereotypes. The story gets exciting when one of Arkroyd's filthy rich and old employers Mortimer Duke, bets his brother Randolph, that a person's background and upbringing can never be erased - that since Billy Ray was raised poor and in an unhealthy environment, he could never escape his troubled lifestyle. On the opposite side, Louis Winthorpe should be successful even if he must start from nothing.
In order to prove his theory, Mortimer decides to test it out by switching the lives of Billy Ray and Louis, and placing them in their opposite environments.

I felt this film was a good example of the idea that whites and blacks are thought to have an expected "role" or "place" in society. The film was able to capture these stereotypes of both colors, without defending or supporting one of the other. I was also surprised to find that it was written and directed by white men, and appeared to be equally stereotypical about whites and blacks. I'd love to watch the film again after my Whiteness studies to see if I can pick up on any flaws or white norms that I'm generally use to seeing. Perhaps it's not as fair to a black person as it is to a white person.

Good Samaritan

Today my Mom came down to Richmond to visit and catch up. We're both very avid thrift store shoppers, so it's almost obligatory that we hit up every thrift store we can think of. One of my favorites places, due to the amount of great things I find there, is Good Samaritan Thrift. I think it's fair to say I'm a bit of a regular there - I go pretty often and am on a familiar face basis with some of the employees.
Today was a bit different from my usual shopping experience - today I was suspected of shoplifting.
There was one particular woman who refused to leave me alone. After the first 10 minutes of being there, I noticed that she kept starring at me. And just out of habit, I starred back. I figured that made her a bit more suspicious, as if I was looking at her to make sure she wouldn't catch me in the act of something, but soon after, I realized that a few other employees were also following me around. Every isle I went to, there was someone there eyeing me. And after every rack of clothes I looked through, the racks were checked by someone else.
I felt extremely frustrated, wanting to confront someone, wondering what I could do to gain back that woman's trust, wanting to assure her she didn't need to be cautious of me, that I really wouldn't ever steal anything. But the minute she felt wary of me, I knew there was nothing I could do to change her mind.
I felt this one measly experience couldn't even be compared to what most African Americans go through everyday. That stereotype and presumption that is engrained in our society, doesn't give anyone a fighting chance. Once it's in thier heads, it's hard get out. I found this experience to be fitting for my current investigation of whiteness, even though the roles were reversed. I know I could never feel that I know where a black person is coming from, but I this small incident gave me a bit of incite to an ever present issue amoung our culture.

Whiteness vs. Stanford Prison Experiment

In Whiteness and Race in Contemporary Art, Maurice Berger talks about white people and thier mindset of white being the "norm." When interviewing people for research, he found that most white people believed that conversations about race were only for people of color.
After reading about the Stanford Prison Experiment in Paul's blog for Performance Imaging, I started to think about the role of whites being similar to the experiment in that there was an expected role to fulfill. Whether or not a white person considers themselves racist, there is an underlying knowledge that as a white person, you have the upperhand, greater opportunities, less things in which to conquer to be treated with the respect and kindness you deserve.
In the prison experiment, students began to unconciously take on the roles they were expected to play. They were rebellious as prisoners and overpowering as guards. Even though the students did not show signs of this type of behavior before the experiment, they were unable to control thier unknown desires to take on these roles.
Similarly, Whiteness deals with the same mentality - Ruth Frankenburg is quoted saying, "to speak of whiteness is to assign everyone a place in relations of racism."

Whiteness

"Black people, long the victims of discrimination, have written about their vulnerabilities, suffering, and triumphs in the face of oppression and predjudice. The student of race, Hooks concluded, needed to examine the source of power, instead of its victims: What's going on with Whiteness?"

-Maurice Berger, White: Whiteness and Race in Contemporary Art

I have only just recently been introduced to this issue of Whiteness, but will write more as soon as I have a better understanding of it!

Vik Muniz

When Muniz came to the United States from Brazil in 1983, he found "The Best of Life" at a yardsale and immediately became attached to it, saying that it, "somehow made me feel safer. It made me feel more a part of the place where I was living."(Excerpt of Vik Muniz and Charles Ashley Stainback interview - Seeing is Believing.)
When he lost the book 5 years later, he started to think about the importance of the photographs and his capability to remember the images he spent years admiring. In his work appropiately titled, The Best of Life, Muniz attempts to recreate Life's Magazine's most significant images with "memory renderings," or pencil drawings of the way in which he specifically recalls the photograph. When he struggled with a specific placement or detail, he would call friends and ask them to try and recall the photograph as best they could. What he came to realize was that everyone remembered the images differently and stored them in their mind as they saw put. Muniz believes, "The visual world is like a crossword puzzle: we all have the same puzzle but each of us solves it differently."
I can relate to Muniz's "memory renderings" in my attempts to recreate my personal memories, except that my memories have no physical point of reference. I'm intrigued by the way in which his drawings led him to discover and investigate the way in which different minds work. In my continuting attempts to recreate my memories of Brazil, I am unsure of the way in which to begin, because of the knowledge I have about the way I disconnect myself from personal work. I would like discover greater things in my work, other than myself, much like Muniz did, because it would make the work much more significant in itself, and to others as well.

?

Recently I've been struggling to make a decision about what I'd like to work on for senior portfolio. In concepts I chose to deal with a subject that was very personal to me - returning back to my Grandparent's old house which I spent the majority of my childhood. My project was recieved well in Concepts, perhaps not so much in Senior Portfolio due to the absence of speech following my presentation...but I've come to realize, and have frequently thought about, the way in which representing personal memories and feelings in physical form, like a drawing or a photograph, are never fullfilling or as significant to me. When I try to express my nostalgia for things past, I find that it tends to slightly demean the way I feel for that moment or place. Yet, even though I'm aware of the outcome, I'm still very drawn to the idea of working with and engaging in parts of my life that I generally don't share. I've also noticed that I'm not very interested in other artists who deal with the same ideas of memory and nostalgia. I found that Mari Mahr and Annelies Strba worked with similar concepts as mine, but I wasn't really drawn to thier work. Maybe that should say something about the work I'm attempting to create...


Ever since I came to VCU, I've always wanted to do a body of work that focused around my Father, Richard Pellegrini. I haven't seen or heard from him since I was 8 years old, it's quite a long and strange story, but I've always felt compelled to do something that involved him and the time my sister and I spent with him in Brazil as little kids. But with my conclusions about work I make dealing with personal and nostalgic things, I thought against it, thinking I should probably not attempt something I might be dissappointed with in the end.

Strangely enough - yesterday I recieved a message from my father, after not hearing from him in 14 years. My family always assumed he still lived in Brazil and that we would never really hear from him, but to my surprise, he found me and my sister- through Myspace. I'm still very unsure how to approach the situation - what would be an appropiate answer to a message asking, "do you want to be my friend?" and if I'm really ready to open up a relationship with someone who has created a lot of difficult and depressing times for my family. I'm generally I really outspoken, opinionated person, but I find myself speechless when having to address someone of little, but also great importance in my life. It's all still very shocking - my sister and I have talked about what we should do, what would be the best way to address him and our family that he has contacted us, but we're still a little taken aback by it all.

Now if I attempt to create work about my memories from Brazil, it would not be the same. I've known that I would approach it with a mindset that I would never go back to Brazil, that the information I could attain about my time spent there would only come from my sister and the part of my family that I still see on a regular basis. Now I have incite to the part of my life I was already comfortable with having left behind as something of the past that I never thought would resurface. It's all still very hard to comprehend, but perhaps there will be answers soon enough.

Nikki Lee

Nikki Lee came to the United States in '94 to study in New York, and found herself completely intrigued by the different subcultures and social groups. In hopes of understanding and relating to these different communities, Lee studied the cultures to adopt their sense of style, slang and mannerisms. She then proceeded to immerse herself into these subcultures for weeks, even months, as a person of that community. I admire her courage and comfortable nature when dealing with a subject matter that is generally taboo and often likely to offend. Her work makes it difficult to ignore stereotypes because it was easy for her to become acquainted with a lifestyle completely unlike her own. She merely mimicked thier dress and attitude.

I've always been interested in issues that divide people, specifically those dealing with color and religion - yet, I've never found a way to comfortably make work about my concerns without coming across as racist or completely ignorant, which I fear I might have at some times, even though my intentions were the complete opposite... I feel that Lee has found a clever and appropiate way to discuss such issues without giving the impression that one social group is better then the other - each persona she takes on is represented and portrayed to be as equal to the next. I greatly respect her work, find her images to be amusing and discouraging all at the same time, and only wish I had the courage to attempt a project as risky and intriguing as hers.