Showing posts with label representation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label representation. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 05, 2021

[face equality]


With another 007 film about to come out, featuring more villains with disfigured faces, it's timely to mention Face Equality International, an organization whose goal is:

Creating a world where everyone is treated fairly whatever their face looks like.

"Face Equality International is an alliance of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), charities and support groups which are working at national, regional or international levels to promote the campaign for ‘face equality’."

"The campaign for ‘face equality’ was launched in May 2008 by the UK charity/NGO, Changing Faces, with the aim of creating a world in which people who have disfigurements to their face from any cause are accepted and valued as equal citizens, free of prejudice, low expectations and stigma. The campaign has attracted worldwide attention and has strong parallels with those against racism and sexism."

thick circle drawn in sunny yellow, with the top segment missing and the ends looking like waves

Even though I'm involved in a lot of diversity and inclusion initiatives and projects, it had never crossed my mind to consider how people whose faces are disfigured (for any number of reasons) are typically portrayed as villains and "bad guys" in the movies and TV shows. I certainly notice how most shows feature white people as the primary characters, perhaps with a Black person as a secondary character -- the friend, or the neighbour, etc.

Read more:


Including great resources for schools and teachers: https://faceequalityinternational.org/resources/


Metro article on new 007 movie and how it promotes fears of facial scars:

Friday, September 17, 2021

[Indigenous art in the public eye]


Indigenous woman wearing red flowing dress, standing on rocks, with a lake and trees in background
Lori Blondeau, Asiniy Iskwew, 2016
"How do you make the work of First Nations, Inuit and Métis women artists in Canada more visible? Some people write research papers. Some people build collections. Some people advocate for funding.

Mohawk curator and scholar Lee-Ann Martin has participated in all of these modes of support in the past. But this summer, she is taking a very different approach—namely, putting the art of 50 Indigenous women artists on 167 billboards from coast to coast to coast." Leah Sandals, 
https://canadianart.ca/news/mawa-resilience-lee-ann-martin/

While this project took place three years ago, the Resilience Project is still offering two great resources:

"Resilience: 50 Indigenous Art Cards and Teaching Guide is a boxed set that contains 50 full-colour, 8" x 10" reproductions of contemporary Indigenous art and a bilingual (English/French) teaching guide, full of ideas on how to use the art cards to animate discussions and inspire activities in all subjects, from kindergarten to grade 12. It is based on the exhibition curated by Lee-Ann Martin, with teaching guide developed by Yvette Cenerini, Lita Fontaine, Dawn Knight and Albert McLeod.

You can download the guide for free or purchase the complete box set at http://resilienceproject.ca/en/.

photo of 10 Indigenous women, standing close together on the street, wearing a range of clothes from business casual to traditional Indigenous
Nadya Kwandibens, Concrete Indians – 10 Indigenous Lawyers, 2012.

Tuesday, April 06, 2021

[LGBTQ2S artists from the north featured at Qaumajuq]

Photo of interior of sea can. Side walls have black and white mural of ice floes, caribou and polar bear. End wall has very large eyeball, with the iris and pupil area being a video screen showing a psychedelic pattern.
"A commitment to showcase diversity is at the heart of the Winnipeg Art Gallery's new addition, Qaumajuq, the world's largest public collection of Inuit art — and that includes highlighting a range of works by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and two-spirit creators from the north."

Along with works of art by queer artists, two of the four Inuk co-curators of the inaugural exhibit are queer. You can read more and see pictures here.


What I'd like to focus on here, is some key quotes:

"I think it's a moment in time where we're ready for a push for the broader communities and every small town and everywhere to have more space and understanding for diversity and gender expression and peoples' sexual attractions." (Asinnijaq)


"The effects of colonialism and capitalism — of homophobic, anti-trans sentiments — still run deep in many communities, northern or not. It's important that we raise up these community members who are unafraid to be themselves, and I also understand that it's a privilege to be able to come out and live openly as queer." (Kablusiak)

"It's really important because I am thinking of all the young LGBTQ Inuit living all across the north, and throughout southern Canada and all around the world, and I want them to see this." (Heather Igloliorte). 


This is about representation -- seeing others like you in the world around you.
This is about returning to traditional values -- where everyone belonged and had a role in the community.

Read more about the INUA exhibit here.
Read more about Qaumaju, the amazing new gallery, here.
Read more articles and see many photos of artwork, at the Inuit Art Quarterly website.

The Inuit Art Foundation, in conjunction with the Smithsonian, held a webinar on Conversations: Queer Inuit Art, which can be viewed at https://youtu.be/_SlEIkTCJ8M.

Wednesday, June 27, 2018

[on the importance of representation...]


Jamal Jordan writes about growing up in a world where he saw no examples of queer people of colour, and how he began taking portraits as part of changing this.

Pat Martin and Paulette Thomas-Martin are both 66 and have 13 grand children between them from the lives they lived before they met. Photo by Jamal Jordan.
"As a child, I thought all gay people were white.

By the time I was 18 and living in Detroit, being gay was no longer a “problem” for me. I was out of the closet, and my family and friends were supportive, even encouraging. Yet, as I set off for college, and grew more comfortable calling myself an adult, a man — a gay black man — I was convinced that no one would ever date or love me.

Growing up, I had rarely seen queer characters of color in the gay young adult books I read, in episodes of “Queer as Folk” I watched or issues of “XY” or “Out” magazines I stealthily bought at Barnes & Noble."

Jamal Jordan, photographer, in Queer Love in Color
Read the rest of the article and see more portraits at: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/21/us/queer-love-in-color.html

See also https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/27/insider/brown-black-queer-and-invisible.html

Friday, April 13, 2018

vampires have no reflections...


one vampire in every crowd. cartoon by rob goetze. Image of a group of vampires in front of a mirror. Only one is reflected in the mirror. Another one points at him and, laughing, says "There's one in every crowd!" Another says, "You don't belong here, you freak!"

"You know how vampires have no reflections in the mirror?" the Pulitzer Prize-winning author asked an audience at the Bergen Community College in Paramus, NJ in 2009. "If you want to make a human being a monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves."

"And growing up, I felt like a monster in some ways. I didn't see myself reflected at all. I was like, 'Yo, is something wrong with me?' That the whole society seems to think that people like me don't exist? And part of what inspired me was this deep desire, that before I died, I would make a couple of mirrors. That I would make some mirrors, so that kids like me might see themselves reflected back and might not feel so monstrous for it."

Junot Diaz, quoted in an article by Billy Nilles


How is this of relevance to people at the margins, people who are part of minoritized groups? They often do not have any positive role models or public figures who represent them and their group, and thus they can feel like they do not belong, like they are not normal....