Intervention Project: Natural Hair Movement

 My intervention project centered around the Civil Rights Movement and the Natural Hair Movement. To me, these movements are very closely related as they are reactions to European standards of society and beauty. Although both the Civil Rights Movements and the Natural Hair Movement began many years ago, the issues are still prevalent today with laws still being passed, such as the Crown Act. The Crown Act is an act first passed in California that "prohibits discrimination based on hair style and hair texture by extending protection under the FEHA and the California Education Code. Since then the act has been passed in the following states: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Tennessee, Virginia, and Washington.  

The physical aspect of my intervention is a collage of different photos of individuals with their natural hair. The photos consist of Civil Rights Activists and members of the Black Panther Party who were prominent figures in the Natural Hair Movement. There are also photos of celebrities who are unafraid to wear their natural hair in public and on the red carpet. Finally, other subjects in the collage are friends and family members are love their natural hair and embrace it any chance they get. On to of the collage are the words "Black is Beautiful" which becomes the official slogan for the Natural Hair Movement. 

Unfortunately, I was unable to do the actual intervention aspect of my project due to the weather advisory canceling classes today. I intended to walk around campus with my poster and ask people how they felt about it as well as asking them questions about hair discrimination, the Crown Act, and the Natural Hair Movement in general. My intended questions were:

• "Do you know what the Crown Act is?"
• "Do you know which states have already passed the Crown Act?"
• "How do you feel about the Crown Act only just being passed in 2019... only four years ago? Should it have been sooner?"
• "Have you ever felt discriminated against because of your natural hair?"
• "Have you ever felt like you had to change your hair depending on certain events to look more "presentable"?"
• "What does your natural hair mean to you?"
• "What can we do as a community to to uplift our youth who might be struggling with embracing they natural beauty and natural hair?"

Intervention 1: WOC redefining identity and Culture Appropriation

For my first intervention I presented my collages and designs, education on cultural appropriation and ways in which women of color redefined femininity and how these things are being considered as 'trends" today. I designed pages to be viewed and did somewhat of a more intimate intervention and was belt to interview to ladies from campus. Video of interview is below: https://www.tiktok.com/@devaneeeee/video/7205298139580943662?lang=en

Here is what I presented to them:

Intervention + 2 Quotes

Sydney & I's Intervention:

The focus is the effects college has on students' mental health. Sydney & are both in an Art Therapy class at NJCU and our professor is teaching us the different ways to get patients to express themselves artistically and visually. Not everyone has the right words to speak to someone about their current situation and the conflicting feelings they may have, so we thought to set up a wall/trifold posterboard to allow students to express themselves without being pressured to say or write anything. By using paint, & possibly leaving some markers out, students are given the opportunity to take any color they please and draw, paint or scribble anything on the posterboard, allowing them a moment to release any emotions that weigh heavy on them. Sydney & I decided to work together and share our knowledge about Art Therapy in order to help students learn some coping skills during a tough semester.

My 2 Quotes

Chapter 2: Process

"Creativity isn't a product, its a process. It's a process that helps us to notice new objects & events, make new connections, and see the world in different ways" (page 51).

• I feel like most people think a creative person just thinks of bright & inspiring ideas on the fly, but there is no knowledge on the fact that there are literal steps the artist takes to get to their work. The creative process is not linear in any sense, but oftentimes takes time and setbacks in order for the artist to finally be motivated by what they're creating. I've personally felt this in my own work. Sometimes I start by jotting notes down or maybe doodling on a piece of paper; I'll play around with my ideas until one hits the way I need it to.

"Our creativity thrives when it can escape the chatter of our mind, or the chatter of other people. This can happen when we're going out of town, or relaxing in the shower. When we can turn off the distractions and quiet our minds, it's like a new channel opens up for creative thought" (page 53).

• Just like my intervention, in order for creativity to flow, a space needs to be made for it. Cluttering your mind with a endless thoughts of things to do will not allow your brain to feel comfortable enough to express itself in abstract ways. If room is made, then its as if the process goes more smoothly.

Essay

Ruth Afontaine Family, 2022. Mixed medium assemblage and Resin 

The first piece that stuck out to me upon visiting Danielle Scott’s exhibition “Kinfolk” was the piece, “Ruth Afontaine Family, 2022.” It is made of a mixed medium assemblage and resin. The brown wooden frame has a rustic look in comparison to the gold foiling and the intricate designs we see the family in the artwork wearing. It is not directly explained to us who the people in the image are, but we do know that they are a family. When I first saw the artwork, I was immediately drawn to the expressions on each of their faces. As these photos were taken during a time of slavery, it only adds more depth to these photos, their expressions hold more meaning than ever before. This also reminds me of a quote by Susan Sontag, taken from an excerpt from “On Photography”, she notes, “Photographs furnish

evidence. Something we hear about, but doubt, seems proven when we're shown a photograph of it.” This quote relates to the art as it shows evidence of America’s dark past that many in modern day, would rather ignore. It’s like when some people try to say the holocaust never happened, or they don’t believe wars that are happening in current times. Photographs like the ones Danielle Scott presents to us in her works help prove that these parts of history did happen. They help us get to know stories and people we might’ve never known about or believed were real people. Then there is the contrast from these black and white photos to all of the colors we see surrounding them. I feel like the choice of colors and designs gives this family the voice and expression they didn’t get to have during this time. They are getting to wear things they didn’t get the chance to and it’s very impactful. This piece makes you wonder what their day was like, what they did inside of the house they’re standing in front of and the stories they shared with one another. 

 

Hatwell, Gray, Bernaby and Eugene, 2020. Mixed medium assemblage and resin 

As I made my way around the exhibit, this particular piece also caught my attention. There are four young boys sitting side by side, their bare feet on top of a long branch. All four boys share similar facial expressions as well. They appear to be bored, burdened, serious and exhausted. In the reading Understanding Patriarchy, it says “Patriarchy is the single most life-threatening social disease assaulting the male body and spirit in our nation”. The reading also goes on to explain that boys are silenced and forced to feel pain and deny their feelings. Which is what I can only imagine what these young boys had to do every single day. They had to suppress their pain and keep on going every day even though they must’ve been exhausted and just wanted to be kids. This image paired with the playfulness of the choice of clothing that adorns each one of them is also really powerful.

Danielle Scott does a marvelous job of adding a feeling of what should’ve been to many of the pieces shown in her exhibition. These young boys should’ve had a better childhood, opportunities and happiness (as shown through the vibrant colors) but they were subjected to endless labor and didn’t even get to wear shoes. But, with this piece, I felt more hopeful as they are young children and children are thought to be the face of the future. This piece left a lot of room for my imagination to wander as I thought of what their lives were like as adults, if they ever had the chance to start a family of their own and if they ever found the happiness they deserved. 

In the book, The Art of Activism, it notes, “Art is highly effective at translating events, facts, and ideologies into stories, images, and performances, making objective things into subjective forms we can experience feel, and importantly, remember” p.24. Art is a universal language as it helps us feel things, moves us and makes us think. I believe that Danielle Scott does all these things in her artworks as she honors her culture by showing u
s the truth and why the truth matters. Not only this but she took on the laborious task of going through many, possibly hundreds of archival photographs and presented them in a way that they would’ve possibly never been viewed before. She also created an experience where the viewers of her work were able to interact with it and feel what her ancestors went through as she had real cotton on display for anyone to hold.  For all these reasons, I believe, without a doubt, that Danielle Scotts work are activism.

In my digital selfie, I used a skirt as a backdrop and a yellow knitted scarf. In both art works I chose to write about, the ground is this orangey-maroon color and the second I saw them in person, I immediately thought of this skirt I owned.

Two Quotes & Intervention

 Chapter 2: Process The Art of Activism 

Quote #1: "Experimenting with new forms of creativity might make you feel uncomfortable at times, and that's good."

• I felt like this was an honorable mention merely because this is often times the cause for lack of creativity with many artists. They try to stick to one thing or what they know because the nonconformity is too much for them to handle sometimes. They get driven by producing one good thing and just running with that for as long as possible and this produces lost potential. The best thing to do in order to improve one's craft is to indulge in the discomfort. 

Siegler Chapter 5: Civil Rights 

Quote #2: "This is the real Mississippi. The photograph is dark, terrifying, and difficult to look at, and that's the point." 

• I chose this quote because I thought it was the perfect illustration for the first quote I mentioned above. When it comes to activism there are different methods that people pursue, however some are considered an extremity and just like the text mentioned, these extremities are considered controversial. This is the one of the effective forms of activism because people hate anything inappropriate or explicit. The unconformity is what triggers a reaction out of people. 

Intervention Idea: 

For my intervention, I'm focusing on the topic of generational trauma. I plan to make a poster/flyer with my own original poem but I plan to involve other writers to write their own poems and create an interview-like session in which we will dissect the poem and discuss the roots of it. Why was this written? Why was it written in this way? How do you think your parents influenced your perception of your own perspective lenses? 

 for my intervention project I would like to focus on the colorism that darkskin black women face. although colorism is widespread across all genders and groups of color, I want talk about how it affects black women specifically.

Intervention idea plus two quotes

For my first intervention, I want to talk about social media, and how sometimes what we see in it is not truthful to how people feel. Sometimes we see posts of people on social media and think things like "that person looks happy, why I am not that happy?" "That person looks so good, why I don't feel like that?". I will take some screenshots of some posts I have done on Instagram, images that I have makeup, and photoshop in it. I will print them. Then I will self-portraits of myself with no makeup, and no photoshop in me, showing the parts that I dislike about me the most, and I will share some personal issues I deal with that I never share on social media. I will present it in a poster collage, half of the social media, and half of the self-portraits I took of myself being vulnerable. By showing it side by side I want to show the contrast that makes the two sides next to each other. Later on, I want to include my friends, family members, and classmates in this project, but because this is such a personal matter I will use just myself this time around. My hope is when people see that I did it will want to participate as well. I want this project to grow and become something big in the future.

Here is an example of how the collage might look when I layered it, but it might change.

Here are my 2 inspirational quotes. 

"Our work needs to come out of love." (Duncombe, Lambert, pg. 59")

I am a mom, my daughter has 11 years old, and this is a project that I would love her to see and learn from it, and understand that social media is not always truthful. I also want all the people who have to feel insecure to know that they are not alone.

"The inventor is always trying to find new ways to solve problems by experimenting without judgment." (Duncombe, Lambert, pg. 63)

All I want is to create awareness, I am not judging anyone. 

Intervention Idea

I decided to base my idea on the books by Keri Smith called Wreck This Journal for people who have trouble staring, keeping, or finishing a journal or sketchbook. I wanted to make it so people can vent their frustrations on whatever is troubling their life or mind, but for it to also be a community journal where people can see the other entries that people wrote so they don't have to feel like they're facing life alone. 

I want to try it first on campus and for it to eventually be out in the world traveling from person to person. I was also thinking of maybe adding a qr code so people can see how far the book has traveled and for people to also maybe post it on their social's.

My two quotes from The Art of Activism:

"In fact, the worse you are as an artist the better the process might be, as you won't fall into well-worn artistic ruts."

"Remember, sketches are not complete masterworks, only the initial steps we make as we work out an idea."

Intervention Idea

 For my intervention project I would like to focus on a specific part of the Civil Rights Movement that truly inspires me and represents who I am today. This is the natural hair community. The natural hair movement was a big part of the Civil Right Movement as it was a protest against Eurocentric beauty standards. The movement coined the term "Black is beautiful" which is a powerful affirmation. Issues stemming around natural hair is still prominent today where we still hear about Black people getting fired from their jobs for their natural hair being seen and unprofessional and even children getting kicked out of school for wearing their natural hair.

For my project, I would like to have a collage of individuals with their natural hair and have the words "Black is Beautiful" written over the photos. I think this will be a very inspiring and beautiful form of activism. I have attached some images that inspire my collage and the essence I want to capture. 

Intervention Idea: Naomi Yamada-Padilla

 I have been very passionate about the mistreatment of immigrants to this great country of ours (no pun intended); however, my intervention idea is to compare and contrast how the minimizing of immigrants. More specifically, how the Japanese Americans during World War II were interned in concentration camps both here and in Canada versus the mistreatment of immigrants during the Trump Administration. Although Japanese Americans were interned in concentration camps some 78-81 years ago, the discrimination and violation of human rights still exists to this day. My mother and her family were placed in a concentration camp in Canada, where she was separated from her father during that time. On the other hand, my father's family was interned at the Grenada Relocation Center in southeastern Colorado. The medium in which I will compare and contrast is via a poster board; however, this may or may not change upon submission. 

Intervention Idea

In 2021, I left for a year to study abroad in Istanbul, Turkey and had the best times of my life. Before this, I had never left the country, let alone been on a plane. My intervention is to raise awareness about earthquakes in Turkey and how to help when a natural disaster like this occurs. I've already shared donation links and am working with the school to raise funds to buy recourses for those affected (I can't give final details yet). 

In addition, I'd love to have a panel discussion about what it's like to travel as a minority who never traveled before and the challenges I faced. In doing this, I encourage others to travel and donate. 

We will also leave a table for others to fill out to apply for their passports. Most Americans don't have a passport and most people from inner city communities don't consider getting their passport because they might see traveling as unachievable. This is only the first step in getting your passport. Those applying will need to get their pictures taken and finish the process at the post office or their county clerk. 

Intervention Post (Gabriel)

 

                                                                   (Quick Sketch of the Skirt)

The issue I chose to make my intervention project is war. I am definitely anti war (not anti military but thats another conversation) and with the Russia Ukraine conflict going on I have been spending a lot of time thinking and researching the effects this war can have on the world. The designer Demna Gvasalia already made a fashion show dedicated to this conflict and I was extremely inspired by this. I am making a 3 piece collection from scratch named "war war war!" that will consist of a skirt made from vintage military jackets and shorts, Jeans and a denim jacket. I chose to use denim because it is a rugged material that reminds me of the roughness and rigidness that war represents. I am going to use a technique to distress and mend the denim and this will represent the destruction, and healing that countries and people need to do during and after the war. The process of making this denim is very labor intensive and each piece will take me about 12-16 hours of sewing. This is also representative of the slow and painful process that war is. I have made my own skirt pattern and sourced vintage Japanese denim directly from my manufacturer in Japan for the jeans and vintage Levis denim for the jacket. I am very excited to go through this process and I will take many photos along the way. I will provide show notes and let the class feel the clothing when I present. 

Intervention Project Idea

 An issue that I want to create an intervention for is school shootings. The way that I wish to go about it is based loosely on the 24hr museum on page 42 of The Art of Activism. Specifically, the part about burning. My idea is to create artwork of students who have died in both recent and significant school shootings. The audience will be encouraged to set the artwork on fire. As the drawings are burning away they will reveal a second layer of drawings underneath that show the same figures as skeletons. This is to represent that their lives have been stolen from them. I want the intervention to push for a change for stricter gun laws to decrease the number of deaths by guns. 

Daniel Lau Intervention Idea

Intervention idea: Men's Mental Health 

The concept of my intervention s designed T'shirts for raising awareness of men's mental health issues. From Moderntherapy.online, it says “On February 6th, 2017, I ran out of my philosophy class because I had a severe panic attack. That week I had at least one major panic attack a day, which were only quelled by some leftover Xanax I was prescribed because of my generalized anxiety. With the help of a psychiatrist, I was able to get through the week. Afterwards, I sat in my living room with my family in tears because I felt there was no way I return to school in this condition. But with their love and support, I found the last ounce of strength I had to trust the medication I was prescribed and went back to school." This was a story from a young man named Mike Walsh who suffers anxiety. Personally, I don't believe taking medications is the answer to help men's mental health issues, what they really need is support from their loved one and friends. They have to know they're not alone struggling with these health issues and they can be willing to overcome them. From Moderntherapy.online, it says “My battle with mental health has been a constant back and forth for a period of 8 years. The specific problems I deal with are depression, anxiety, dermatillomania (skin picking disorder) and body dysmorphia. To begin with, it took me 2 years to actually become aware of my problems as I originally just assumed this was all part of growing up and it would pass with time. Unfortunately this wasn’t the case and although my problems have grown stronger it’s also made me grow stronger as a person. I know I still have a long journey ahead of me but the improvements I’ve made already are a strong enough incentive to keep me going. I’m now in a position where instead of hiding my problems away I’m able to completely express myself online in hope that I’m able to help others along the way.” This was a story from a man named Connor Windmill who has several problems with his mental health. It's unfortunate for anybody discovering their problems late rather than earlier. People could feel vulnerable when they're not prepared to fight against their mental health problems. Raising awareness of anyone with mental health problems could encourage people to battle them and make them stronger. I would be giving out designed T-shirts for raising awareness of men's mental health problems.

Farrah Pepino Intervention Idea 2/22/2022

I noticed how this generation has become materialistic, myself included; how everything revolves around getting this and getting that. Materialism forces us into comparing what we have with the possessions of others, and I find it very suffocating and not worth our time and energy. Hence, for my Intervention Project, I have planned to create an oil painting of four street vendors selling bananas. At first, I wanted it to be exhibited at a park where it usually is crowded. However, with the limited time that I have for this intervention, I have changed how I can physically interact with the audience. I designed a T-shirt with my artwork and came up with the slogan:  “Look around… Reflect”. 

Growing up in the Philippines, I had friends who lived with a lifestyle where their families could not afford to buy new clothes, nutritious food, and sometimes they would run out of water and electricity. There are also many homeless people, most of which are abandoned children. Although they seemed joyful and satisfied, it is truly heartbreaking still. It saddens me that while we obsess over having a more privileged lifestyle, many families worry about what they will be eating, how to pay for their bills, and get education. The objective of my intervention is to prompt people to be mindful of their blessings and privilege. I want them to realize that instead of focusing on what they don’t have, aggressively chasing possessions, they must always take a reality check. If they have enough money to give to people, I wish them to donate to charities, especially to invest in the youth. 

Inspirational quotes from the reading:

1. “Our creativity thrives when it can escape the chatter of our mind, or the chatter of other people. This can happen when we’re going out of town, or relaxing in the shower. When we can turn off the distractions and quiet our minds, it’s like a new channel opens up for creative thought. This is why some artists like to go on retreats”

2. “Living by a double standard, to us, means allowing ourselves a spectrum of success instead of a single point. It means having high standards that we aspire to, and understanding that we will usually fall short. This isn’t failure, it simply means we are human.”

Philippines (2022) by Farrah Pepino

Intevrention Idea 2 women of color culture and how they reddefined feminity and how white people are gentrifying it and apropriating. more inormative activism Making a set of photo collages( or like an informative almost magazine concept and getting it printed) of wear certain styles came from Many white people gentrify the products and styles that women of color that have been riducled for. They had to sort of work with what they have. Like beauty products and hair products. Make collages and inform women about it at gsub and ask their views on it and compose a video about how they feel! post it on social media and see the reactions. ill be tlaking about lip liner, certain hairtsyles and how makeup was not caterted to woc and how comparing to how appropriation is effecting us now

this photo is somehwat of inspo on how i want to layout my prints.

Amelvis Villafane Intervention One Idea

Social Issue Addressed: Mental Health awareness, the goal was to bring awareness and reduce the stigma around mental illness, and masking in relation to Mental illness.

Masking in a relation to mental illness is the act of hiding or suppressing symptoms of a mental health condition. People usually mask in situations and environments where they are expected to act in a socially normative way — like at school or work, or when meeting new people. Sometimes that means copying the behavior of people around you to blend in, or swapping your usual behaviors with ones that seem more “normal.” 

When a person masks, they’re acting like they don’t have a mental health condition. Masking is typically more about what you don’t do rather than what you do.

Most people with ADHD, Autism and High functioning Depression tend to mask as a means to fit the societal norms.

My idea was to the term "masking" and turn it into an actual mask, and show what was on it. With real images of faces, and show true feelings. The plan is to also ask others when are times they have felt like they were masking. They don't have to answer, but the idea is for them to reflect internally.

Two Quotes from Text

“Simple Message, Bold type, Strength in number” slide 12 Chapter 5 

This talks about the signs “Honor King: End Racism” it explains how you don't need an extremely over thought and creative sign to be an activist and protest. It just needs to get your point across. It needed to show what your message is. And then explains how if a whole bunch of people raise that same sign in the air as you it adds more meaning to it. It shows how with numbers there is strength and power. Same as the sign “ I AM A MAN.” when they were fighting for the rights to be treated equally, and be treated as man. 

“Two acts of defiance nearly 50 years apart deliver the same message: I refuse to be afraid.” Slides 8&9 

This ties in with the idea that is in the book, that explains how there are no new ideas, but just experiences in the past that you can borrow and recreate to appease your agenda. And how there are only new combinations. And it shows a Black Lives Matter protester peace showing resistance towards police which leads to her arrest. And the photo from 50 years prior, shows a 17 year old unarmed girl walking up to the fully armed soldiers to talk. This protest was an anti war protest from 1967. 

Intervention One

 

For the social activism piece project due on March 1st, my classmate Royer Zamudio and I shared a few ideas before deciding on focusing on the issue of anti-homeless architecture.  It is a problem that we have noticed during our journeys to New York from Jersey City. More specifically, in Journal Square. Journal Square has a small plaza in front of the path station, where homeless people usually sleep. This slowly changed when new condos began to appear and more well-known franchises like Chipotle and Starbucks were built, spikes were placed where the people struggling with homelessness once slept in an attempt to push them further away from the businesses. To some, they think this is a better look for our city, but we believe it is only further segregating a group of people based on class. There is a quote from the Art of Activism that notes, “Research and observation can be done everywhere, from noticing colors and forms around you to reading a celebrity news gossip magazine” (Duncombe & Lambert, p.62) I relate this quote to this project because I never really did “research” in the way most people think of when they hear the word. My research was noticing more spikes appear and benches with partitions. Things that look so out of place but have unfortunately become normalized because it is an issue that mainly impacts the displaced. This type of architecture is not a solution to end homelessness but a way to ignore the issue altogether by ostracizing people struggling with homelessness.  

For our art piece, we plan on first creating a graphic design by using photoshop. Then we will find a place that can print our design onto a shirt for us. Our design will say “Reject Hostile Architecture” with a silhouette of a mattress on top of spikes. It is not only protesting anti-homeless architecture, but it will also serve as an homage to a photo that circulated around on the internet a few years back (pictured down below). This shows that all it takes is a little creativity to reject such petty hostility. There is a second quote from The Art of Activism that states, “For some stepping off the curb may be like an epiphany, a blinding moment of clarity in which the injustices of the world are dramatically revealed.” (Duncombe & Lambert, p.18) We hope to raise some level of awareness with this piece since not people even realize this kind of architecture as it blends in so easily.

 

 

<inspiration

Intervention One - Renee's Project Sketch - The Trifold Gallery

The Trifold Gallery

My classmate, Gabriel Diaz, and I discussed an intervention inspired by the 24-hour Museum. The original plan discussed creating an interactive gallery within the Gilligan Student Union Gallery that enticed students to come in and write and draw with provided papers and markers and have it pasted to the gallery's walls. One of the instructions is to write about a political cause that they are passionate about, along with their personal drawing/writing. At the end of the intervention, there will be a tally based on the socio-political issues that NJCU students are passionate about. However, as of right now, the GSUB gallery is a grandeur idea that may or may not be organized within a week's timeline. Therefore I created an alternative, a smaller mobile "gallery" to walk around with and motivate people to participate. 

The Trifold Gallery works like an instruction piece, with a printed poster that will accompany the board. In bold letters, the sign will give the participant instructions: 

1) Draw, Write, Doodle. 
2) Tell us what socio-political cause you care about. 

The participant can have the choice to draw freely on the board or take a post-it note and make their drawing there which will be posted on the board. I want the participant to write freely and let them have time to draw and write whatever they want before telling us about a cause they care about. This intervention is like a research project in its own right. The Art of Activism book states, " Research and observation can be done anywhere, from noticing the colors and forms around you to reading a celebrity gossip magazine" (pg. 62). In this sense, we are reaching out to the NJCU community to participate in our own interactive study while also encouraging people to think about important issues they want to represent. At this point, the Tri-fold gallery is in its sketch phase, a trial alternative for our greater plans. " It is easy to imagine ideas like fruit in a field and, as we wander through the orchard of our mind, we pick and choose the sweetest and ripest fruit" (pg. 64). As this is the first intervention I want to ensure that we can get the notice out there and hype up the idea of a student gallery event. 

The Tri-fold Gallery is a research intervention that will encourage students to be creative with the supplies provided. It lets them stop and think about the activist causes they are interested in while they are creating and give insight into what the NJCU community is united in the most. The results of this intervention can then go towards the second invention as it is geared towards the NJCU community's interests.  

Karen Osorio Gallery Response Essay

       

Karen Osorio 

Professor Doris Cacoilo

Art & Activism 

16 February 2023

     When visiting Danielle Scott’s exhibit Kinfolk, there were two art pieces that caught my attention. These two pieces were the Ruth Afontaine Family (2022) and Charlotte Noble (2022). When I first saw these two particular pieces I correlated them back to what Scott mentioned in her statement about visiting her homeland and just feeling her lineage, as a whole speaking to her. I feel like that’s something that is very important to mention, especially when looking at the context of her entire exhibition. The act of revisiting your lineage, ancestry, and being aware of your roots’ history is something that can allow us to be telepathically tethered to the past and proceed to tell our ancestors’ stories with a first person perspective. Oftentimes,  reaching into ones ancestral past can lead us towards  a bigger purpose or awareness of current social issues or events. It can make viewers ask themselves how is it possible that we’ve come so far but we’re still so far from bettering as a society. 

        The Ruth Afontaine Family (2022) is a form of collage exploration and illustration expression. Scott used resin and what she calls mixed medium assemblage. In this art piece there is a depiction of children going into what seems to be a place of worship, like a church. The children are wearing colorful attire with patterns on them. The background of it is pieces of paper that are from a literary source. When looking at this piece I felt an immense comfort as well as an immense sympathy. The feeling of comfort was because the children were together and not alone. However the sympathy part of it was more so because this church was most likely one of their havens and it’s a concept that breaks my heart because no child should feel unsafe anywhere. 

            Another piece that spoke to me furthermore had to be the Charlotte Noble (2022) piece. When I came across this artwork I immediately felt a force of energy looking back at me. This piece featured an older black woman dressed in a blue patterned garment along with a hat. Similarly to the Ruth Afontaine Family piece, this artwork was created with mixed medium assemblage and resin. This piece felt particularly vocal to me because of the way the woman is looking straight at her audience. The woman herself seemed to me like an outspoken and resilent soul. 

            As I walked through the exhibit, I kept a mental note of which quotes these two artworks, just like the others, reminded me of. At first glance I immediately thought of Susan Sontag’s article “On Photography”. She wrote that “although there is a sense in which the camera does indeed capture reality, not just interpret it, photographs are as much an interpretation of the world as paintings and drawings are.” The reason this came to mind immediately was because the exhibit in entirety was the epitome of feeling and emotion. With just a glance of an art piece or two, it would inevitably pull you in- just like any fine art does. But truly, I feel that many people forget that paintings and drawings are just as capable of getting a reaction out of an individual as photographs. While art and photography have different processes, they are each still art. They are done in different ways, yet they are often implemented into the public to raise awareness or touch someone’s soul in some way. 

            Furthermore, as activism artists, telling our ancestors’ stories through a lens of creativity without diluting their history, is what we do. Taking this into consideration made me think back to the reading of “The Art of Activism” chapter one in which it read that “we make sense of our world through symbols and stories at least as much as we do through facts and figures.” I agreed with this wholeheartedly because initially when I read Danielle Scott’s artist statement, I immediately thought back to this quote. The reason being because Scott herself mentioned how visiting her homeland made her feel connected to her roots and her ancestors. I feel that when artists feel this way, they feel driven to dig through their ancestors’ stories and illustrate them on canvas. Artists creating art with the intention of acknowledging history is their way of sensing our world.

            Lastly, in bell hooks’ “Understanding Patriarchy”, she spoke about her household and how her parents both were led on by patriarchal values. They would put these values upon her and her siblings – especially her father. She writes, “we were to remember that if we did not obey his rules, we would be punished, even onto death. This is the way we were experientially schooled into the art of patriarchy.” When applying this to the pieces I chose I realized that patriarchal standards could have been present in both works of art. It could be something as simple as their clothing, their demeanor, or the meaning alone of the piece. 

Charlotte Noble (2022)

Ruth Afontaine Family (2022)