Kara Walker

Kara Elizabeth Walker is an American contemporary painter, silhouettist, print-maker, installation artist, filmmaker, and professor who explores race, gender, sexuality, violence, and identity in her work. She is best known for her room-size tableaux of black cut-paper silhouettes.

Walker is best known for her panoramic friezes of cut-paper silhouettes, usually black figures against a white wall, which address the history of American slavery and racism through violent and unsettling imagery. She has also produced works in watercolour, video animation, shadow puppets, “magic-lantern” projections, as well as large-scale sculptural installations like her ambitious public exhibition with creative time called “A Subtlety” (2014). The black and white silhouettes confront the realities of history, while also using the stereotypes from the era of slavery to relate to persistent modern-day concerns. Her exploration of American racism can be applied to other countries and cultures regarding relations between race and gender, and reminds us of the power of art to defy conventions.

This piece of work is very powerful. It shows the reality of life that many black people had to go through during the 19th Century, whilst slavery was going on throughout the world but especially in America.

The black silhouette represents the lynching that occurred between the 1830s and only ended because of the civil rights movement in the 1950s/60s. The fact that she chose to use the colour black has many connotations .

The colour black not only represents black people, but can also represent being cold. This could be representing the harsh conditions that the black slaves had to work and live in throughout the year, year by year. Being cold could also represent the loss of a life. When you touch a corpse, it is cold to the touch. Many people would have seen bodies hung around the streets because of the horrible lynchings that took place throughout the 130+ year period.

The colour black also represents darkness. Just like the darkness of the nights that people had to work through. But also the darkness that clouded over people’s mind to think that treating people in such a horrific way was okay.

History of Lynching in America | NAACP

Inspiration: Defying gender normalities.

For this NFT we have decided we want to highlight the fact that people are expected to look a certain way based on their gender/sexuality.

We decided that we were going to make a film but also include images that I will have taken by the time we shoot the film. We also decided that we are going to add the images in between the scenes. This would be seen as a glimpse into what was going through our model’s head, but also foreshadows what will happen by the end of our film.

Celebrities that have already done this:

Recently the red carpet is often the place for celebrities to make a statement. For example Billy Porter turned up to the 2019 MET Gala in a large gown with the torso of a tuxedo and the bottom half had a black velvet ballgown silhouette.

He gave an interview to Vogue saying:

“This industry masquerades itself as inclusive, but actors are afraid to play, because if they show up as something outside of the status quo, they might be received as feminine, and, as a result, they won’t get that masculine job, that superhero job. And that’s the truth. I’ve been confronted with that.”

https://www.vogue.com/article/billy-porter-oscars-red-carpet-gown-christian-siriano

Why Women Can Dress Like Men But Not Vice Versa

More celebrities defying gender norms:

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A storyboard is a graphic organizer that consists of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualising a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence

We are going to film fashion through all the different decades. Our chosen decades are – 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000’s and 2020’s. We will do this by using one of our female friends to model for us. She will walk across two set points in the studio and film each decade in the exact same way. After all these clips are filmed we will put them all together and each second will cut into a different decade, with the finishing video being her walking across and her outfit changing several times representing the different decades.

scene 1 – the first thing we will film will involve a 70s based outfit, our model will walk across two points.

scene 2- then we will film our second scene which involves an 80s based outfit

scene 3- model walking across wearing a 90s based outfits

scene 4- model walking across wearing a 2000’s based outfit

scene 5- model walking across wearing a 2020’s based outfit

then we stop shooting, after we have filmed all of our clips we will merge them together to make sure the scenes change and cut through all the different decades.

a small storyboard plan of our outfit inspiration;

we will mark two points in the studio, in front of a large white backdrop, the model will work vertically towards the camera to make the outfit the most visible. We will have to take 5 videos of the model, each video with a different outfit from one of the 5 decades. Once we have those clips we will cut them into small second videos on a software so that the decades are swapping a the model is walking.

Contextual Study – The Bayeux Tapestry

The Bayeux Tapestry is an embroidered cloth measuring nearly 70 metres long and 50 centimetres high. The tapestry depicts the events leading up to the Norman conquest of England, specifically between William, Duke of Normandy and Harold, Earl of Wessex. This is better known as the Battle of Hastings. The piece of art tells the historical event from the point of view of the Normans, although it was discovered to be made in England. It was commissioned by Bishop Odo, William’s half-brother in the 1070’s, just a few years after the Battle of Hastings. The piece begins with a prelude to Harold’s visit to Bosham on his way to Normandy (est.1064) and ends with the flight of Harold’s English forces from Hastings (October 1066).

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Bayeux-Tapestry

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayeux_Tapestry

Artist Study – Inge Jacobsen

Inge Jacobsen is an Irish-born artist who is now based in Sussex. Jacobsen attended Kingston University, London, Where she studied photography. She graduated in 2011 and has been working as a professional artist since then. Jacobsen’s work has been exhibited in multiple shows around the world, and has won many awards such as the Director’s choice award at the final Cork Street Exhibition in 2013, as well as being featured on countless websites, blogs and worldwide publications. These publications include mainstream media such as Vogue, Juxtapoz Magazine and FAD. She was also included in a list of the top 20 rising talents by a prominent Danish lifestyle magazine.

https://www.asicentral.com/news/web-exclusive/april-2016/embroidery-artist-qa-inge-jacobsen/

Experimenting with tapestry/embroidery

In our embroidery workshop, we experimented with embroidery with cutting sections of material out and sewing them together. I used two tones of background material that were both neutral, but used a darker thread to contrast this. Since our project is based on identity and community, I cut out sections of a poster from the ‘People Make Jersey’ exhibition, specifically the section that explains the history of my surname.

A story board is a graphic organizer that consists of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualising a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence.

For our group project we have decided to focus on fashion through the decades. We are going to do this by having the same model walking towards the camera several times in different outfits from different decades. We are going to use a story board to show what different ‘scenes’ we are going to include within our film.Once we have filmed the shoot we are going to use adobe premier to edit the clips together by cropping and changing each clip quickly to show the quick progression of fashion and how now its slowly developing to nfts in fashion.