Identity (race and gender)

While writing my biographical post on Wangechi Mutu i thought i could include her in the topic of Identity as she has inspired me so much. Wangechi‘s work is mostly using black female body/ face to tell a story about females in Africa.

This piece of her work relates the most to the indentity topic. It illustrates what is in a typical black females head: the ideal magazine white female with a perfect smile and body. This is not an issue for black women only, it is a big issue for all the females. How magazines are showing us the perfect shapes and parts, faces that not everyone has. It also changes how men look at females expecting all of women to be perfect. I understand how this artwork touches other issues like migration and surgery and this is illustrated by the packaging tape stuck all over the head. The white fluff stuck on the cheek to me personally illustrates what black women go through to have straight hair, the weave, changes in the colour of their hair. The piece also illistrates the loss of history and heritage of any tribe or tradition, people these days are so despereate to reach perfection that they forget the real values of their heritage. While reaching perfection all of us want to be different, but if we are reaching the same perfection pictured in magazines, at the end of it all we are all going to be the same, but if we treasure our heritage we will stay different as we are now, each with our own story.

Image link.