Identity

Identity is the characteristics that determine who or what you are. It is how you define who you are and also how others define you. When you figure out your identity you can form strong, meaningful connections with others and also helps you to communicate with people. It is important to recognise how you identify to be able to love yourself and to be confident and learn to accept who you are.

Social Identity

The 8 social identities are :

• Ability
• Age
• Ethnicity
• Gender
• Race
• Religion
• Sexual Orientation
• Socioeconomic status

Social identity is how people categorize themselves into a social group and how the perceive themselves in relation to society and the options of different social groups. Social identity influences how people see themselves and how they interact with others.

Cultural Identity

Cultural identity is the distinct identities of people or groups in cultural or subcultural categories and social groups. It gives people identification with a sense of belonging with a certain group of people based on the different cultural categories including nationality, ethnicity, race, gender and religion. People express their cultural identity through clothes, food, festivals, music and art.

Geographical Identity

Geographical identity is when a person or group of people feel a sense of attachment to a country, region or the village in which they live in.

Identity politics

Identity politics is a form of art that focuses on exploring the concept of identity. It is almost always personal and allows them to express their experiences, emotions and beliefs. It can also be a way to explore different social and cultural issues that relate to :

• Race
• Religion
• Gender
• Sexual Orientation
• Social background
• Caste
• Social class

Culture Wars

Culture wars are a type of cultural conflict between two or more social groups who struggle to politically express their feelings or what they believe in. In 1980s culture wars flared up and there was a rising movement of conversations that American society had lost its way. The main problem of these culture wars was there was a decline of cultural and moral values instead of economic or political issues.

Identity Art:

An early example of identity in art is Frida Kahlo’s self-portraits who wanted to express her Mexican culture through art as well as the larger social and cultural issues. Her work challenged the traditional of woman in art which she created the idea that woman are portrayed as passive and decorative objects.

This is one of Frida Kahlo’s Artwork.

Identity art evolved throughout the 20th century and we saw Cindy Sherman use gender roles and stereotypes of men and woman and how they are portrayed so differently.

Cindy Sherman is an American artist who created self-portraits in different contexts to portray the different stereotypes of woman. She was extremely interested in experimenting in different identities. She would create different images with props that she has deliberately chosen to resembles movie characters. She continued to create different photographs to show the diversity of different people and different human stereotypes.

The 20th and 21st centuries have been seen for artists and photographers to use political identity to portray there authentic life. Political identity is a huge part of our life today as we see it everywhere, whether its through artwork or other ways. This is beneficial for them to express their feelings of their identity to

gender identity / cultural identity / social identity / geographical identity / political identity / lack of / loss of identity / stereotypes / prejudices etc.