WEEK 6 BLOG POST RESPONSE

I would like to write about ideas brought up in Nina Freidman's November fifth blog post on Laura Aguilar. She discusses issues of identity and perceived norms associated with these identities and groups. I completely agree with her. Nina writes that "identity can function as alienating and oppressive in a way that titles tend to pigeonhole us," and that this works for both self-proclaimed or not identities. Laura Aguilar's art deals with this concept and relationship of self and identity in a larger social context. Much of her work ruminates upon womanhood and notions of identity and characteristics associated with being a woman in an oppressive and labeling society. With Aguilar's striking nude in nature photographs of herself, someone who doesn’t conform to mainstream concepts of beauty and body image, she complicates this definition by showing her commitment to accepting and celebrating a body not done so by the world we live in. Her focus on this connects to the idea of identifying with certain groups and adding complexity to master narrative definitions of these by breaking the norm. She expresses her own identity as a woman, a Chicana, and person to be valued and of importance, and an artist through the power in these unique images. Aguilar refuses to be pigeonholed. Nina did a very enlightening examination of Laura Aguilar's work and values, and enabled me to think more critically about these ideas of identity and assumed characteristics.