Cultural and Social Injustice Pieces
What is the central idea of your concentration?
Throughout my life, individuals and their personal stories have always touched me. I feel our experiences shape who we are. The central idea of my concentration centers on the stories of my African American heritage and family. Through assemblage, my work visually represents the generational stories of my family, from my great-grandparents to today (myself and my siblings), and the cultural and social injustices that have shaped their lives as well as mine. How does the work in your concentration demonstrate the exploration of your idea? My concentration is driven by the stories of my family. Through conversations with my grandmother, parents, and siblings, I have been able to develop works that represent/visually document the cultural and social issues of four generations of African Americans. Each work is comprised of found objects that are intentionally juxtaposed to provoke thought. I have used a range of found objects that I collected from my family or by scouring thrift shops and/or the Internet to locate historically accurate objects to portray the stories. Through the works, you will see a chronological transition from the late 1800’s (great-grandparents) to today. Therefore, the objects reflect those times and move from having an antique to a modern-day look. Each work is conceptual but also grounded in compositional structures (compositional rules and elements/principles). For example, image 1 is organized using the rule of thirds and stems from a conversation I had with my grandmother. She told me of a story in which my great grandmother walked in on a lynching/hanging. Following that event, she could not sleep for three months. The story drove the organization and imagery. Each work has a unique story that is indicative of the time in which the person lived. I have been deeply moved by this artistic journey and my family's past. Early 1900's Nightmare
This piece stems from the story my grandma told me about her mother. Her mom was walking outside one night and saw someone being lynched and hung. She was only a little girl and couldn't sleep for 3 Months.
Material: pillow, rope, feathers |
Sit In
This piece is about my grandma and how she tried many times to eat in the front of restaurants but was unable to due to segregation.
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9 Mile Road to EducationThis piece is a result of my grandma and her two friends having to walk to school each day. It took them 9 miles to get there and 9 miles back. Each day they walked while buses filled with white children yelled rude thing at them. My grandma and her friends had to walk in different weather conditions and terrain. They traveled far even though there was a school closer to where they lived. They were unable to attend these nearby schools due to the color of their skin.
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Light at the End of a DepressionMy great-granddad was outside one day and he came across some cans of money. He kept digging and found more. He was having to take care of his sisters and his mom because he was the man of the house. He invested some of the money and took the rest and built a home for them. The home that he built with his own bare hands is still standing today. Unfortunately, the money that he invested was lost due to the Great Depression.
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AssumptionsWhen my grandma was eating dinner with her family, these white men came and kicked down their front door. They beat her uncle and her dad because a white lady claimed that a black man had raped her. The white men basically assumed that my Grandmas uncle or dad committed the crime so they beat them so hard that they were unable to tend the farm. The lady later admitted that it was a white man that raped her.
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Beauty in AdversityWhen my Grandma went to her middle school, the school was in deep poverty. She was forced to go to an underprivileged school instead of the school next to her house due to the schools being segregated. Her mom was determined to make everything pretty for her in order to make the best out of a situation. She decorated her favorite lunch every day with a note that always said, " Have a blessed day Lois, Love Mother".
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No Means KnowThis piece represents one of my co workers that told me she was raped by two men. I was the first person she opened up to and it just showed me how much she had bottled up inside. She is one of the strongest people I know and it just showed me how bad things can happen to good people.
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UntitledThis represents a family member who was a doctor and gave one of his patient a prescription and the patient ended up selling it on the streets. My relative went to jail and i remember visiting him at the age of 5. I'm still unsure on what exactly happened.
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The Lonely Dancer
This piece represents my sister being the only African-American dancer in her dance studio. She has faced many issues due to this and is constantly ostracized because she doesn't have the "perfect dancers body". Most dancers are skinny where she has more curves.
Hands UpMy brothers greatest fear is being stopped and questioned by the police for being somewhere at the wrong time. Today, we see many African Americans being killed by the police. From Ferguson, Baltimore, and North Charleston (close to where I live) these issues are highlighted on our television screens. A change is needed.
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IdentityGrowing up I was always criticized for my hair. Going to a predominantly white school, my hair was always brought up in conversations. For African Americans, we chemically straighten our hair through perms. I believe this is to look like everyone else around us and to fit in with social norms.I decided to go natural which means I don't have chemically straightened hair. I was teased often but i looked up to natural women like Lupita Nyong'o. I put magazines of these natural women all over my walls as inspiration.
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