Repost from @instrumentsofmemory:
My new documentary, The Injured Body, examines racism though the lens of micro-aggressions: slights, slips of the tongue, or intentional offenses that accumulate over a lifetime and impede a person’s ability to function and thrive in the world.
I chose to approach racism by focusing on micro-aggressions because of two reasons. Firstly, as Claudia Rankine explains, we seem to understand structural racism somewhat, but are baffled by racism coming from friends. It is disorienting because it is unmarked. ‘The Injured Body’ hopes to home in on the language needed to ‘mark the unmarked.’ Secondly, personal stories lend themselves to filmmaking because they can help create intimacy and trust, and lay the groundwork for a paradigm shift.
The film spotlights the voices of women of color not only because their stories are misrepresented and frequently ignored by mainstream media, but also because they operate at the intersection of multiple forms of oppression and can articulate the complexity of those experiences. Their testimony and analysis can help broaden traditional understandings of feminism as well as anti-racism work.
Film stills/photographs of Ayni Ali, Amanda Chestnut , Sady Fischer, Lu LutonyaRachel Highsmith, Lauren Jemison, Elizabeth Nicolas, Greta Aiyu Niu, and Tonya Noel
Ayni Ali’s photograph by Arleen Thaler, all other photography by Erica Jae (pls see on IG)
