TAR BABY BRAND CLOTHING CO.

 

In my work I attempt to fully engage with postmodern subversive practices by playing within the bounds of the same media vehicles that carry and sustain binary and binding stereotypes in the first place. Working within the established codes of racial representation I use verbal and visual play to subvert standard interpretations and produce alternatives to fixed identity within the limiting space of mass media representation. I work to cite, reveal, and critique how the African American body performs in the social sphere and how race informs and disrupts, not only how we are seen, but how we see ourselves as a people. My hope is to address and redress the undermining problems of misrepresentation by calling attention to the various generalizations of character and being that plague African Americans in modern society. In my work I explore image making and the cultural engine that drives and inspires raced performance. My specific interests lie not only in the quotidian performance of race but in how racial performance generates its own mythology and fundamentally changes the dominant culture that surrounds it.

 

With this project I wanted to begin to address the ways in which African Americans are complicit in narrowing the scope of identity in a more direct way. I was drawn to the idea of dress and costume for many reasons, the most significant of which leads back to my interests in African diasporic mask and Carnivale traditions. This project is attempting to explore the ways in which many African Americans adeptly navigate a constantly fluctuating field of stereotypes for self-promotion, preservation, and maintain a thriving dynamic existence through it all.

 

I wanted a primary source of visual inspiration for this project to come from people with lived experience of being and becoming African American. I began by speaking with interested parties including, models, a hairstylist, and a makeup artist about stereotype and what issues they may have faced in their everyday lives. Through discussion with the models I generated five personalities, or common labels give to African American women for them to embody: Jezebel, Mammy, Tar Baby, Princess, and Sapphire. Based on personal conversations, each model was assigned a character to embody and given free reign of portrayal. The stylist and makeup artist were each given adjectives, images, and readings, and allowed to decide how they wanted to style each personality. All of this preparation resulted in a photo shoot and over 1000 images of young women becoming and embodying common stereotypes of black femininity.