Week 8 Monica Kim Garza

Monica Kim Garza is a Mexican-Korean visual artist with a strong social media base who uses her voice to show a utopia for bodies and characters traditionally villainized or deemed worthless in mainstream depictions. Garza draws on themes of body positivity and radical self love to celebrate women and people of all shapes and colors. She depicts full figured bodies of color roaming in utopic paradise, carefree and full of life. This kind of utopic vision that Garza creates is championed by the tens of thousands of followers on her Instagram. I think what is notable about Monica Kim Garza and her work is the influence of her celebration and her famed reception on social media. This makes me consider the ability of social media and the internet to strengthen community networks, and also how the internet actively attempts to silence certain communities. Machines made by humans carry the same prejudices. Garza uses the internet to forward her creative practice. In addition, her multinational cultural upbringing shows the diverse future that potentially awaits us. Meaning, her works of art are image-texts for liberation and Garza excavates a space determined by cooperation and sensitivity for love’s sake. I also appreciate Garza because of her multicultural existence and the expansion of the Chicana identity to further a world not separated by national boundaries. What I have come to appreciate about Chicana arts is that it is not focused on or separated by location, but is a philosophy of existence and creation that transcends borders, just like Garza.