Image Untitled #01 from the Manipulated Light and Power Series has been chosen for the online exhibition curated by Wim van Sinderen - Senior Curator for the Hauge Museum of Photography. Take a look at my entry and leave a comment! Thanks!
manipulated light & power series
Installing the Manipulated Light & Power Series
The Manipulated Light & Power Series is my latest series dealing with race and gender identity. I like to call it the prequel to the larger, still in production, the reImagining. While the reImagining deals with the fight against stereotyping, Manipulated Light & Power series speaks on the mental repercussion of the moment you first realize this stereotyping is happening to you. The exhibition is a series of five images depicting the progression of this realization, and the vicious cycle as it constantly occurs in the everyday life of Black women. Making literal the metaphor in Ralph Ellison's The Invisible Man, I used light as the protagonist in the images. I wanted the light to work to both hide and define the models identity in the same manner paralleling the ability of stereotypes to do the same. The actual physical installation to be creates for these images will heighten that disparity. By manipulating the images with a pulsating light source I want to make the viewer recognize the ease of identity manipulation. Putting that light source on an intensifying cycle will work to show that the moments of stereotyping are harsh, constant, and never ending.
As you can see, I have already started working on the prototype. I like the way the images are working together and flowing together. But, there is work to be done. My next steps include flushing out the design of the plexiglas cube. How constructed do I want the frame to be? How do I get lights to actually work and then pulsate in the cycle I want? Should there be sound? If I design it, can I find someone to fabricate it? Those are just a few of the questions I am working on. Feel free to stay tuned as I realize the last steps of this exhibition.
Just for fun - I am leaving you with an idea of the feeling I would like the install to feel. Yeah slow exposure!