WITNESSING WHITENESS
Adriana Pellegrini
“Whiteness implies both a racial color and a powerful state of mind and body – a norm that had been so pervasive in society that white people never needed to acknowledge it or name it.”
- Maurice Berger
Witnessing Whiteness is a study of the underlying white privilege that exists in all aspects of our culture through institutionalization, socialization, or commercialization. Whether it is something as unnoticeable as a band-aid, or something as frequent as a magazine ad, whiteness continues to filter through our lives, undetected and unquestioned. My intent in documenting these objects and places is to bring to light an invisible power that subconsciously infiltrates and affects our society. The seemingly mundane nature of these photographs showcase the influence of a pervasive white privilege. The first step in understanding whiteness is being able to recognize it - I hope to further that understanding and encourage discussion of an issue that has yet to be fully addressed.
3 comments:
I think because I had to personally ask you how everything related or how exactly each piece was an example of whiteness I feel like other people may ask the same thing. You are telling us with this work that these are things that we miss on a daily bases and the sad part is, we may miss it again. You're not always there to explain, and your work is, more than others, especially important that it is understood by the people looking at it. I don't think that you need to have an in depth explanation for each photograph but maybe if you somehow work your artist statement into the titles or have it printed big at the beginning of the work. I say that because I think your artist statement helps me easily understand everyone of your photographs. Hope that helps! Keep up the fantastic work!
Ok not "we" but white people miss it.
see.
you've opened my eyes.
Drauna,
I agree with Amanda, and I think that although I understand them without a caption, I've also been looking at them and hearing you speak about them for a long time. I know you want to have your artist statement readily available when you show your work, and I think that will help. but, as ridiculous as it sounds, many people simply don't want to read even a paragraph when they look at work unless they are especially interested in the work. I'm sure you realize that, also working in a gallery and seeing people walk around and look at things and all they do is look. I think providing captions will help, because everyone who looks at the image will read it. captions are very hard to ignore, being presented along with an image. In your case, if you are specifically concerned with providing information with your photographs, I think that captions is the way to go.
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