Abstract
Identities are complex and influenced by those around us and informed by our experiences in the world. Some individuals may have come into this conscious awareness with the rise of Zoom, Zoom filters, and the ability to change one’s appearance to make oneself more pleasing to those on the screen in front of us. Some may have come into this conscious awareness during the rise of Instagram and posting oneself, editing oneself, for the viewing of others. For some, our identities are made into marginalized identities, undervalued identities, or invisible identities at the hands of the society around us. All of us came to this unconscious awareness in infancy when we needed the world to respond to us and revolve around us for survival. It is impossible to arrive into adulthood without an unobscured view of oneself. Obscured through the lenses of those around us. The viewing population. To see oneself without the lens of the other. So much of how we see ourselves is influenced by how we think others see us, how others respond to us, and how others respect and validate our identities. We are reflections. This workshop seeks to shift the power of the gaze from the observer to the observed and to put the power to define oneself back into the hands of the individual. Audience participation is critical to this workshop as the audience will be the artist and the art.
Details
Presentation Type
Theme
KEYWORDS
Identity, Marginalization, Gaze, Identities, Society, Disability, Race, Gender, Sexual Orientation
