Tuesday, May 22, 2018

Presentations: Kim Bjanes

Looking back on my classmates presentations last week, the presentation on Kim Bjanes really stuck out to me.  Although I like listening to the biographies, stories about each artist and learning about their work, the presentation about Bjanes felt a little more personal.  The presenter shared stories about how she grew up in a Spanish speaking home, hearing the stereotypical, negative, phrases, about her hair.  But then she showed how Bjanes used this same phrase in her printmaking to reclaim the phrase into a source of empowerment for beautiful, brown, women with big, curly hair.  Bjanes struggled with her own identity as a light skinned Latinx artist, and uses her work to acknowledge her own privilege while empowering the voices of her "darker skinned sisters."  Her art shows us how empowering it can be to reclaim words that have been engrained into womens' minds as something negative and/ or shameful.  The following is a picture of Bjanes wearing one of her own prints on a shirt.

Image result for kim bjanes beautiful brown

1 comment:

  1. Hi Emily,

    Personally, I also felt the same kind of connection like you did with Bjanes. I also agree that it's very fascinating how she is trying to change the meaning of many words by reclaiming them, and ultimately detach them from their negative meanings. She reminded me of the first book we read by Debra Blake, where various Chicana artist deconstruct the negative meanings of common cultural symbols within the Chicanx community. Like you, I admire Bjanes for encouraging us to view things in a different perspective.

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