Kelc – LookingOutwards09

For my final Looking Outwards I decided to look at Angélica Dass; although she is not a tech artist she inspired much of my work for my game and my last project for this class.

Angélica Dass is a Brazilian photographer based in Madrid, Spain. She is most known for her exhibit Humanae which aims to explore the true variation between skin tones and challenges just what exactly makes us the classified race that we are– as she stated in her TEDTalk, “does it have to do with our origin, nationality or bank account?” She speaks on growing up in Brazil, which, like many Latin American countries and countries in general, culturally contains many implicit and explicit biases against people of darker complexions. Dass recalls being treated like a nanny or a prostitute many times because of her complexion, a story eerily similar to one I heard while interviewing a few Brazilian women for my project. This issue has improved tenfold since the times they are speaking of, however it has not been quite eradicated anywhere in the world.

 

Dass’ other pieces include Vecinas, a collaboration with the Mallan Council of Spain which aimed to reshape the perception of migrants and refugees of Mall through archived pictures and Dass’ photography, and De Pies A Cabeza, a series of photographs of people’s faces and their shoes. Her work challenges existing notions in a subtle and objective but very powerful way. Conceptually she is “goals” so to say; in my game and in a lot of my work I aim to achieve the same sense of subtlety she does with same amount of intellectual impact.