I worked with Artists Coalition for Change Together (ACCT) last year when they introduced me to Mariko Yamada and we got to develop a short piece that combined film and dance for the Rochester Fringe Festival. That collaboration carried over into the film I’m working on right now and dance became an integral part of The Injured Body: A Film about Racism in America. I will always be grateful to ACCT for that connection.
Yesterday I presented a retrospective of my work, which included my films and artwork but also social justice issues I am invested in, at an ACCT meeting. I loved the lively feedback I got from the audience throughout the presentation. So satisfying. As usual I talked about Orientalism, colonialism and the power of the Orientalist lens, which is very European and very white.
One response to images of my collage work was that the colors were too much and in direct opposition to what a Western/European eye is used to. Earlier yesterday, I had spoken at Roc Women’s Fest about radical love, an antidote to the othering necessitated by capitalism. It struck me that color can be othered as well and it reminded me of this important research on how the beautiful Greek and Roman marble statues, considered foundational to European culture, used to be painted in bright, primary colors before being archived as monochromatic standards of classical beauty. A whitewashing of history if ever there was one.
It also made me think of how the impressionists loved color, how Picasso and Matisse never shied away from primary colors or intricate patterns, or how Rauschenberg’s work or abstract expressionism in general couldn’t possibly exist in a monochromatic space. Do the domes and minarets discernible in my artwork and deliberately reminiscent of South Asian architecture make it more alien or hard to take? Perhaps an odalisque, in the exact same colors, would have looked more comforting, more familiar? Could be interesting material for another piece of writing.
Why does pop culture continue to imagine that the statues of the classical world were all white? Can the digital addition of painted colors to the ancient statues depicted within film, video games and other media correct the false ideal of whiteness as beauty? More here.