Omotade Fatiregun: "America's Mirror" Proposal

For my final project I would like to make a piece that targets an audience that usually does not see themselves as being in the audience; the creator. My tentative title is going to be “America’s Mirror”. Art at times is descried as a mirror into reality. As we know, there are so many forms of art and so many mediums by which we consume art these days. I will be focusing on visual art in particular.

Art is always made from the point of view of the creator; due to the history of America, not all artists have been allowed the opportunity to let their point of view be seen.  Through out the history of television, film, print, and all other visual mediums in this country, the “majority” or white males have dictated the images seen by the masses.  As we all know the faces of Americans has been increasing in variation since the conception of the country, but it has not reflected in who has controlling say over what we see. I would eventually like to explore the artists who represent all those faces, but for the sake of this project i will narrow it down to the face of the African American. 

A quote from Viola Davis's Emmy acceptance speech

I would like to create a documentary based on two black photographers that i know very well, one male and one female, both in their early 20's and both have very different personalities. They both happen to be working on a joint project titles, "The Melanin Project". It is a project with the purpose of celebrating all melanated peoples by showing them in their rawest form. Both photographers would be charged with shooting subjects of the opposite sex, in the nude. After which the photos will be presented at a formal art show thrown by and for a bunch of college kids. I feel like documenting of the creation of this project will be a great opportunity to delve into the mind of a young, black, american raised artists of a visual medium. After the appropriate research on the history of the representation of melanated people in american mass media, i would try to get their perspective on how it has effected them as people and as creatives. What role do they think their work played at the station they are in their careers? How do they feel the genders have been represented in American media and how do they feel about having present the opposite gender in their project? Most importantly, what do they hope to achieve with their project as a whole, from the actual photographs to the exhibition?  

This is a topic that shaped a lot of my own personal work. I myself am an artist, an aspiring musician, videographer and writer. I am constantly reminded of how the representations of black men on television shaped my childhood. I shaped how I saw myself, it shaped how other people saw me (black and non black) and as I started to create it shaped how and what I created. I then began to see how further knowledge of self outside of what had been taught to me through visual mediums, began to change my art. Furthermore, through further knowledge of other races, cultures and nationalities, my point of view on people who were different from me began to change. Which stated to make me question the points of view I previously had, and why I had them. What was I taught about someone who looked a certain way, and how was I taught that.

Television molding young minds.
(Stone by Chris Thomaidis)

My purpose for this project is to give an actual voice to those who usually remain voiceless, in a literal sense. Focusing on those who creating in a visual medium who don’t usually get to speak, but whose voices have the potential to be the most powerful. Also in a figurative sense, those who are not necessarily white or male whom due to the history of media may not get the chance to be heard on as large a scale as they would want. My hope is that this project reached other visually creators of this generation and the next. I hope it makes them aware of the power of the imagery they have been fed and how it has affected them, and hopefully teaches the responsibly and accountability for what we choose to put out into the world. The important most important in my opinion would be to bring awareness to a need for diversity in the controllers and creators of popular American media.  

Bibliography

1. Bogle, Donald. Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films. 4th ed. New York: Continuum, 2001. Print.