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Elaine Sugrue
Alexia Webster

Alexia Webster is a South African documentary photographer and video journalist based between Cape Town and Johannesburg. From creating family portrait studios in spaces of displacement to documenting youth culture movements, her work explores dislocation, identity, and intimacy. Her photographs have been featured in The New York Times, Washington Post, WIRED, CNN, and Time magazine amongst others. She has received a number of awards such as the ArtRaker Award for Art in Conflict, the POPCAP award for Contemporary African Photography and the Frank Arisman Scholarship at the International Centre of Photography in New York City.

Webster is mostly known for her ‘Refugee Street Studios’ series which is an ongoing project that involves setting up a portable photographic portrait studio on the streets of refugee and IDP camps around the world. She invites anyone who wants to pose for free and they receive the printed photograph afterwards. She set up the first Studio in March 2014, in Bulengo IDP a camp just outside the city of Goma in the D.R. Congo, with a population of over 50,000 residents who ha fled fighting and violence from the north eastern regions of the country. Over 700 people attended the studio to be photographed, some even dressed up for the occasion. This temporary studio gave poverty-stricken and displaced people the opportunity to be photographed with their families. The studio was very successful. Webster explains ‘The images human beings seem to treasure the most are of ourselves, our loved ones and our ancestors. Whether in war or security, poverty or wealth, a family photograph is a precious object. It affirms our identity and worth, and our place in humanity.’ ‘A Village in the Clouds’ is an ongoing project of photographs taken in Hogsback, a village in the Amatola Mountains in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province, where the artist’s great grandfather bought a piece of land in 1932. The location, clouded in mist, has been considered a sacred place for many generations. The series is an exploration of the village’s present and its history, and a search for ‘a glimpse of those spirits’, including her own ancestors, ‘who roam these ancient and haunted forests.’

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Mona Hatoum was born in Beirut to Palestinian family in 1952. She lives in London.

Hatoum challenges the movements of surrealism and minimalism, making work which explores the conflicts and contradictions of our world. Her studies at the Slade School of Art coincided with developing ideas around gender and race, and she began to explore the relationship between politics and the individual through performance.

In the late 1980s she began to make installations and sculptures in a wide range of materials. These often use the grid or geometric forms to reference to systems of control within society. She has made a number of works using household objects which are scaled up or changed to make them familiar but uncanny.

(Hot Spot III - 2009)
Based around the theme of global conflict/ danger zone.

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Hein Ko Hein ko is a visual artist known well for her sculpture work. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She graduated from Dartmouth College with a dual B.A. in Studio Art and Psychology and received her M.F.A. in Painting from Yale University.

•Hein Ko started building structures in 2011. One thing I like about Hein Ko is that a lot of her work always features ‘the eyes’ as she liked the idea that eyes were spiritual and allowed you to see into another realm. She enjoys a mix of realism and fantasy. She also depicts her emotion through her work. Having struggled with depression she also studied psychology so she could better understand depression. Of her she says a lot of it inspired by her children and the tears that you so often see in her work represent the struggles she faces.

•I love how her work is so vibrant yet has an emotional depth to it, her work to me speaks of life as life can be great (the vibrancy) but there will always be struggles (tears), we must overcome.

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·       Anila Quayyum Agha is an artist born in Pakistan, who won the ArtPrize award in 2014 at the Grand Rapids Art Museum in Michigan. Her conceptual artwork is influenced by her rich cultural heritage and Islamic origins (The Culture Trip, 2021)

·       Agha explores love and loss through highly intricate and conceptually complex sculptures. Featuring delicate patterning, her work operates at the intersection of between differing cultures, people, and memories.

·       Working from her background in textile and fabric art and design, Agha uses a combination of textile processes such as embroidery, wax, dyes, and silk-screen printing within her drawings and paintings. She creates patterns based off ancient Islamic geometric patterns and Islamic interlace patterns through hand cutting, laser cutting, and sewing on paper. She uses embroidery as a drawing method to bridge the gap between modern materials and historical patterns of traditional oppression and domestic servitude.

Why does her work appeal to me?
Anila’s art work appeals to me as I find her patterns and designs to be very creative and appealing. I also found interesting that she retrieves her patterns from Islamic geometric and Islamic interlace. This appeals to me as I am also Islamic and think that Islamic geometric and interlace is beautiful. I was also fascinated with where she was born, as I am not familiar with any artist in Pakistan.

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Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese contemporary artist who works primarily in sculpture and installation, but is also active in painting, performance, film, fashion, poetry, fiction, and other arts.
1.      Appeal?

Reminds me of scenes from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Alice in Wonderland: magic of the unknown and multiple perceptions and ideologies. Like the colours, shapes and range of demonstrations she creates

2.      When was it created?

Exhibition at the Tate Modern and Gallery ( 5 story) in Tokyo

Life of the Pumpkin Recites – by Yayoi Kusama - All about the biggest love for the people - 2019

3.      Themes and ideologies that underpin the artwork

·       Shape

·       Colour

·       Circles and dots

·       Princess of Polka Dots

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Annie Leibovitz is a photographer.

It is hard to believe that any woman has changed the face of art more than Annie Leibovitz, whose iconic portrait photography has spanned more than forty years. Inspired by photographers such as Robert Frank and Henri Cartier-Bresson, Leibovitz began her career as chief photographer at Rolling Stone magazine in 1973, a position she held for ten years before branching out on a solo career. Her work quickly became known for the intimate moments she seemed to capture with subjects she says “open their hearts and souls and lives to you.” Over the years, Leibovitz has photographed the Rolling Stones, John Lennon, Queen Elizabeth II, Miley Cyrus, Demi Moore, Dolly Parton, and so many more.

Much of her most recent work appears in Vanity Fair magazine. I like Annie Leibovitz work as photography has always been a passion of mine, I love capturing moments my house is full of pictures. Annie did some work with celebrities recreating Disney moments which are a favourite of mine.

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Tshepiso Mazibuko
·       Tshepiso Mazibuko was born in 1995 in the township of Thokoza, Ekhuruleni in South Africa.

·       She was introduced to photography by the ‘Of Soul and Joy’ initiative funded by Rubis Mecenat.

·       Mazibuko is inspired by her own environment. She tells stories of people who live close to her, by documenting her own township. She takes photos of people in their own environment and homes.

·      Her work interests me as the photos are unposed and natural, they show a lot of emotion and document the everyday lives of the people living in this ( quite possibly difficult) community.

·       She uses black and white film photography, which I like and have used myself/have an interest in.
- her work and photos included majority men, this is due to the culture in the village. She speaks about men being more confident and happy to put themselves forward to be photographed.

·       She has participated in numerous group exhibitions such as the Ghent Photo Festival, group exhibition at the Johannesburg Art Gallery, part of a group shows at the Turbine Art fair 2016 and has been awarded Warren Editions Artist of the year for 2017.

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Tshepiso Mazibuko (b.1995, Thokoza, South Africa). Tshepiso uses the medium of photography to add commentary about the political, society, landscape and history. Tshepiso completed her studies in photography at the Market Photo Workshop in Johannesburg in 2016. She has had shows at Ithuba Art Gallery in Johannesburg, The Market Photo Workshop ,The Ghent photo-festival in Belgium, Gallery A MaGNIN',The Turbine art fair, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Warren Editions in Cape Town, the Art Africa fair in Cape Town as well as the Addis Foto Fest in Ethiopia. She is the recipient of the Tierney fellowship 2017, and has been awarded the Prince Claus Fund grant for 2018.

She lives and works in Thokoza.

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Tshepiso Mazibuko - South African Photographer - Hundred Heroines

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Tshepiso Mazibuko (b.1995, Thokoza, South Africa). Tshepiso uses the medium of photography to add commentary about the political, society, landscape and history. Tshepiso completed her studies in photography at the Market Photo Workshop in Johannesburg in 2016.

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Yoon Ahn (AMBUSH)
Yoon Ahn was born in Korea but constantly moved during her youth to different places in America. Ahn finally moved to Tokyo in 2003, where she currently resides. Ahn is well known as the creative director of her fashion brand AMBUSH and as Dior Homme's men’s jewellery design director.

Ahn’s work appeals to me as I have a huge interest in fashion (in particular trainers) and I believe that fashion is a great way of expressing yourself.  Ahn is a huge advocate for sustainable clothing and emphasises the importance of durable fashion and for consumers to buy less and to invest in pieces that last longer. She believes that sustainability is something that everybody needs to care about as it is an urgent matter and thinks that consumers and companies need to consider the significance of this issue. Further, Ahn believes in breaking gender stereotypes in fashion and does this through her gender defying designs.

Yoon Ahn, under her brand AMBUSH, has collaborated with multiple brands that are of interest to me such as A Bathing Ape, Nike, Off-White, LV, Dr. Martens and Sacai. Her designs are interesting because she does not have a unique fashion genre that she adheres to and she explores the relationship between everyday objects, jewellery and statement accessories. Her fascination with pop art references can be seen throughout her designs for both AMBUSH and Dior Homme. Her designs are mixed with themes referencing American and Tokyo hip-hop fashion styles which continue to be consistent within her innovative designs.

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Inside Ambush: Behind The Scenes At Jewellery Designer Yoon Ahn's Tokyo HQ

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"I don't like the word 'streetwear'," says Yoon Ahn, the designer behind cult label Ambush. "I think it's more comfortable, casual wear? Everyday wear? It's nothing new."

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Alexia Webster

·      Currently has an ongoing project called ‘Refugee Street Studios’. Allowing refugees from around the world have the opportunity to pose in portable photographic portrait studios. They are then given the photograph to keep free of charge after their sitting.

·      The ‘Refugee Street Studios’ have now had more than 700 participants. The main reason that most people took part is the opportunity for families to get free family portraits. This is something many people will take for granted however for the people taking part this may be the first and only family photo that they own.

·      The Refugee Street Studios was a joint venture by Webster and artist Michael Saal after seeing men in South African offering to take photos of friendship groups and use a portable printer to print their photos.

·      These studios have been set up in Mexico, India, Madagascar, South Africa and the USA.

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Alexia Webster travels the world, setting up public studios where anyone can pose for a portrait.

Alexia Webster travels the world, setting up public studios where anyone can pose for a portrait. For the South African photographer, it's about redressing the power balance between artist and subject - all while sharing the simple joy that comes with having your photo taken.

This story appears in The Documentary Photography Special VII. Get your copy now, or subscribe to make sure you never miss another issue.

In my childhood home, there was an old black-and-white photograph that used to hang in the hallway. It was a family portrait - of my grandparents, my great uncles and my mother as a three-year-old, all posing in a photographer's studio.

At the time, they were going through a lot of upheaval - they were recent economic migrants who'd moved from a small island in Greece to South Africa - but all you could see was their pride; their elegance. It's an amazing, dignified image. Of all the photographs I have, it's the one I treasure most.

When I was a teenager, South Africa was going into democracy - the world was being explained to me in this incredible way through photography. I decided that was the kind of thing I wanted to do. Eventually, I started working as a photojournalist and was doing a lot of work in refugee camps. In 2011, I arrived in this camp in Kenya called Kakuma to document work being done by an NGO.

One day when I was shooting, an Ethiopian man came up to me and said, 'So, when are we going to see these photographs?' I replied, 'Well, to be honest, I don't think you are going to get to see them.' Understandably, he was super annoyed. There had been a lot of photojournalists coming in and out of the camp, taking photographs that none of the subjects ever got to see. This man - himself a refugee - told me that he didn't have pictures of his own family. Meanwhile, he was on parade for photos that he would never see.

This really resonated with me - given how much I value my own family photos. I realised then that a lot of the images I took may be looked at briefly by audiences around the world and then quickly discarded, but to the people in them, they were valuable and important. In the context of that refugee camp, where many people have lost their sense of home, a family photo takes on a whole new meaning.

Back at home in Cape Town, there are guys who walk around on a Saturday night taking photos of people out on the town and carrying portable printers. When I saw this, I remembered that man in the camp and the idea of Street Studios was born. The first one I did was in Cape Town in 2011.Together with my friend and very talented artist Michael Saal we set it up in a neighbourhood near my studio and had a line of people queuing for about two days. People brought their families and waited for ages to have their picture taken. For me, the experience was very moving.

Since then, if I'm ever working in a place where I feel like it could be valuable, I try and spend an extra day there and set up a studio. I've done it in Mexico, India, Madagascar, South Africa, the USAand South Sudan as well as in refugee camps in the DRC. I've taken thousands of photographs around the world.

Most of my subjects pose as a family. But even when people pose alone, it's about a sense of belonging: 'I am here, I mean something, I belong to this human race. My life is of value.' That's why the family photograph in my home resonated so much - these were my ancestors, I was part of this story.

There are mixed reactions when people see a photo of themselves. Mostly it's really beautiful. But perhaps the most interesting response I had was in a refugee camp in Congo. A woman sat for a portrait and she had a huge scar over her face; I later learned that her husband had been murdered and she had been attacked when her village was forced to flee a militia attack. She posed, I took the photo, then she left.

I carried on photographing and then took a break. I went outside and there was a gathering of people. The woman was in the middle and she was very upset: it transpired that she hated the way she looked in the photograph. I said, 'It's fine, we can retake it!' But the group of women who had gathered around her explained that it wasn't the photo that was the problem. She had simply never seen herself since the attack and the photo had forced her to confront what had happened. The women reassured me, 'It's fine, continue photographing, we've got this,' as they offered her support - talking through what she was feeling as a collective, and processing the trauma. It became a powerful experience.

For me, it all comes back to this idea of belonging. People will borrow clothes from one another so they can look smart for their portrait. They hang around the studio, interacting as they wait to get their picture taken. It becomes this public performance of love and identity. I think that's what gives it the magic I feel in it.

This story appears in The Documentary Photography Special VII. Get your copy now, or subscribe to make sure you never miss another issue.
See more of Alexia Webster's work on her official website. Enjoyed this article? Like Huck on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

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Making memories: The street studio where anybody can sit for a portrait

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Alexia Webster travels the world, setting up public studios where anyone can pose for a portrait. Alexia Webster travels the world, setting up public studios where anyone can pose for a portrait. For the South African photographer, it's about redressing the power balance between artist and subject - all while sharing the simple joy that comes with having your photo taken.

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Sheila Gowda
Sheila was born in 1957 in southern India. She most well known for her artistic piece "Behold". This work consists of four kilometers of hand knotted rope and approximately twenty car bumpers. Short strands of human hair are commonly knotted around the bumpers of vehicles to ward off accidents and bad luck.

I was interested in this large scale art piece due to its abstract nature. I also have family members who have looked into and admire her work.

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Bharti Kher

Bharti Kher is a contemporary British-Indian artist who works with painting, collage, photography, sculpture, and installation. Probing cultural misinterpretations with her work, Kher uses Hindu mythology and objects such as bindis as sculptural materials. The most famous example of this is in her The Skin Speaks A Language Not Its Own (2006), which features a life-sized elephant made from fiberglass and ornamented with numerous white bindis. Over the following decades, through her sculptures and collages Kher has created hybrid beings that unite contradictions of gender, species, race, and social role.

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Nkosi was born in 1980 in New York a South African father in exile and a Greek-American mother. She moved to Harare in1989 then Johannesburg in 1992.

Nkosi is a multi-media artist. She sees painting as a way of notation, of actively processing thoughts and reflections. Her compelling paintings are part of a larger collection of stories in a diverse array of mediums such as video, installation, and performance, with a strong emphasis on collaboration and communication.
Heroes is a series of oil portraits first shown in 2013 and has since grown in number of subjects, artistic development and exposure, having gained international acclaim when showcased at ‘Being There’, a contemporary South African exhibition at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris (2017).
Nkosi’s work investigates power and its structures – political, social, architectural.
I chose Nkosi her art is about being united, working together, to change history which is our present.

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Shirin Neshat is an Iranian artist and film maker, born in 1957. She has had many solo exhibitions in galleries and museums worldwide and directed her first film in 2009. She travelled to the USA in 1975 to study Art and during the time that she was there, the Iranian Revolution transpired. When she returned from the USA in the mid 90's, she was shocked by the radical transformation that had happened in Iran. She found this trip very emotional and resulted in a series of photographs named "Women of Allah". The complex photo series compared imagery of both strength and inferiority, subverting the stereotypical depiction of Muslim women.

Her other works also explore issues of gender and female identity in contemporary Islamic culture. Neshat works in an array of mediums, but is best known for her photography. Her images are incredibly powerful and convey deep messages rooted from Iranian and Muslim culture, particularly focusing on gender issues and questions of power.

In this image, named Rebellious Silence (1994), "the veiled subject is armed and boldly staring at the viewer—while the written calligraphy invokes her silence and difficulty in having a voice under an Islamic fundamentalist regime."

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I chose Leila Ameddah. Leila is an Algerian artist who takes her inspiration from the world around her. She describes her process as looking for the details within shadows and the lights in the sky. She takes inspiration from other Arabic artist. She is a Dentist and holds degrees in both math and science.

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Isa Genzken - A Variety of Materials Inspired by Urban Space

Isa Genzken is a contemporary German artist from Berlin, widely known for her sculptures and installation art which employ various different materials, including bric-a-brac, concrete, wood, plaster and textile. She is also recognized for her works in photography, video, film and collage.

Born in 1948 in Bad Oldesloe, Genzken studied fine arts and art history, before completing her studies at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in the late 1970s, during which she was greatly influenced by Constructivism and Minimalism, styles and philosophies still seen in her works today.

As part of her profound interest, which is deeply grounded in urban space, Isa Genzken arranges complex installations featuring mannequins, dolls, photographs, and a wide array of found objects.

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I have chosen Agnes Nyanhongo from ZImbaabwe. Agnes is a world renowned stone sculptor. She works with many types of stone to bring to life the fight against the patriarchy and represents female power in Zimbabwe. Agnes is considered to be a pioneer in stone sculture, her work has been purchsed by Oprah and Maya Angelou. Her work has been in exhibits in London, Sweden and the US.

I was interested in her work because it is a cause that every woman around the world can empathise with and being a Zimbabwean woman I feel even more connected to her work. The fact that she works in a male dominated field and uses womanhood and femininity as her inspiration is very compelling to me. It was very interesting to read about a female force coming from Zimbabwe and it helped me learn more abot my culture.

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Christine Ay Tjoe -  Indonesia's most prominent female contemporary artists. Starting out as a graphic artist, she experimented with dry-point technique which introduced her to the sharpness of the needle and the fine lines that come with it. In her later works on paper and canvas, lines, whether straight, curvy or broken, remained paramount and allowed her to structure her works. She explores a range of human emotions in her work, and whilst seemingly chaotic, her detailed work is at times delicate to the point of fragility.
The art she produced is characterised by earthy tones and deep reds; strong, charged colours that allude to powerful human emotions. Her practice encompasses myriad art forms, from painting on canvas and works on paper to sculpture and large scale installation.
I really like the detail and colour used in Christine's work and was drawn to its chaotic style. The human emotion in her art is a running theme in that really interests me and provides a point of connection for someone like me who is very new to her work.

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Alexia Webster

Alexia is a South African photographer and the winner of the 2013 ArtRaker award. The reason I have chosen Alexia is because of her current ongoing project ‘Refugee Street Studios’. Alexia visits refugee camps and sets up portrait studios which anyone is welcome to visit and receive a printed photograph for free. The first studio was set up in 2014 in city of Goma in D.R Congo. Over 700 people came to get photos of their selves of their family taken. Alexia believes ‘The images human beings seem to treasure the most are of ourselves, our loved ones and our ancestors. Whether in war or security, poverty or wealth, a family photograph is a precious object. It affirms our identity and worth, and our place in humanity’. Her work appeals to me as I think it is an act of kindness to those who are often forgotten or negatively labelled. Her time and effort give disadvantaged people the opportunity to feel valued and important.

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Mariko Mori

· Japanese multidisciplinary artist

· She is known for her sculptures, videos, photography, installation, digital imagery and performance pieces which often involve surreal or science fiction-like objects and imagery.

The artist’s work appeals to me as the futuristic theme, colour pallet and display of Japanese culture intrigues me. I find it interesting how people picture the future and how drastically different it can be to the worlds current state. The sculptures she has created embody the idea of surreal and clean finish future. The holographic and black pallet she often uses is also interesting as I feel it stands out and can only be appropriate or applied in art. Mariko’s has a fascination with technology and spirituality and she believes that technology is a means of transcending and transforming consciousness and self. This is shown in her present work.

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I love this artists precision artworks from Anila Agha who has profoundly influenced her arts by her encounters living within the confines of diverse cultures and religions, such as Islam, Christianity, Pakistan and the US. Via her work, she explored cultural and social questions concerning women and the sense of isolation and transience in patriarchal societies. Agha's artwork has a rich ethnic and Islamic history.  Her artwork is displayed on the ground, ceiling and the floors of the galleries are covered by floral and geometric forms of monumental cubes, little buildings, octahedrons and tetrahedrons. They all challenge exclusion, transportation and belonging, which is how she describes her personal experiences. Some themes of her work include; Intersections, Light and Shadow, and Symmetry.  Her beautiful arts transform the room into a mesmerising space for reflection and total immersion.

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Newsha Tavakolian, photographer, born in Iran, 1981. Newsha raises the issue of women being suppressed and silenced in Iran. Uses her art to give Iranian women a presence. Newsha also tries to document life in Iran and depicts Tehran in a real, unadulterated way.

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The project Listen focuses on women singers who are not allowed to perform solo or produce their own CDs due to Islamic regulations in effect since the 1979 revolution. The photos are taken of the professional women singers performing in their mind in front of a large audience where in reality this was taking place in a small private studio in downtown Tehran. Subsequently, in my mind I made a dream cover CD for each of the women which was my own interpretation of the society I live in and experience, however, the CD cases will for now remain empty.

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Listen: Giving Voice to Iranian Women * Newsha Tavakolian * Magnum Photos

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The project Listen focuses on women singers who are not allowed to perform solo or produce their own CDs due to Islamic regulations in effect since the 1979 revolution. The photos are taken of the professional women singers performing in their mind in front of a large audience where in reality this was taking place in a small private studio in downtown Tehran.

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I highly admire Anupam Sud’s printmaking techniques. She is an Indian print-maker with nationally and internationally exhibited works. She was born in 1944 and has studied print-making at Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London.  Sud represents humans and objects where their skin, texture and volume are captured most effectively by contours and in the black and white ambience of etching.

Her work has greatly inspired me as a print-maker. She is well recognised for her work "Dialogue Series". I personally like her work "Of Walls". It is an etching Intaglio print. This print narrates a different tale to each viewer. The tonal gradation, simplicity, sensitivity, attention to details and play of light and dark engages the viewer and enhances the aesthetic appeal of the print.

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Yin Xiuzhen
Yin Xiuzhen is a Chinese sculptor and installation artist. Her collection, 'Portable Cities' caught my eye and I enjoyed looking through her work and learning more about her views and ideas of society while admiring her ability to transform her vision into impressive art. This collection 'represents the ease with which the modern man is able to travel from one city to the next'. The collection is made out of many different materials including articles of clothing worn by 'everyday urban citizens' which become unique pieces of architecture.

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Ananda Nahu

Ananda Nahu was born in 1985 in Bahia, Brazil. She is a graffiti artist and is world renowned for her elaborate murals.  Her murals are produced from a combination of using stencils and free hand paintings. They are detailed, vibrant and incredibly beautiful. I really like the patterns and beauty in her work but also that her work brings art to all in urban areas.

Her work is ‘united with characters that transmit messages of strength, beauty and positivity that reflect all of the beautiful and divine nature of the human being’ (Nahu, 2021).

In 2015 Ananda was selected by CNN style as ‘one of the redefining artists of Brazil.’  Her art seeks to promote diversity and inclusion. In recent years Brazil’s population has changed with fifty-five per cent of the country now identifying as black or of mixed heritage. However, this is not reflected proportionally within the workplace, with Ananda bringing particular focus towards representation in the media and on television (Bloomberg, 2017).
I particularly like this painting. I think it would make a very interesting art project, for our year six class, encompassing both transition and aspirations. Ananda’s painting represents the child writing her own future. The red and yellow leggings the child is wearing symbolize hope and perseverance, the flames are the fire which comes from within to create something better for oneself. The same pattern then blends into the floor adding the suggestion that your creative fire and drive will lead to success.  The image behind portrays the child as an adult, thriving and working.  Ananda has also worked on projects in the United Kingdom.

References

Bloomberg (2017) Celebrating the Awakening of Black Consciousness in Brazil. Available at   https://www.bloomberg.com/company/stories/celebrating-awakening-black-consciousness-brazil/(Accessed: 31 January 2021).

Nahu, A (2021) Ananda Nahu. Available at https://www.anahu.com/copia-bio. (Accessed: 31 January 2021).

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Wah Nu and Tung Win Aung

As an Anglo-Burmese woman I decided to look at the art of Wah Nu and Tung Win
Aung.  This Burmese couple take art out to the villages of Burma where they
collaborate with the country people using resources and personal possessions to create
exhibitions in barns and public spaces.  They have had to fight to continue their work
against the oppression of the Burmese junta and the censorship and restrictions that
came with that.  Their models and pop-up displays have been created using plastic
sheeting, toys from the local children are interactive and are not made to last.  The scaled down
aspect of their work they say is representative of ongoing censorship to Burmese
arts and the country’s unsettled political situation.

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Barbara Kruger - Exploring Gender and Identity
Kruger was born January 26 1945 and is an American conceptual artist who is widely known for her work consisting of monochrome photographs overlaid with slogans that deal with cultural constructions of power, identity and sexuality.
Kruger's work appealed to me as the purpose of her work has a very powerful meaning to it. She does this by short 'catchy' phrases addressing cultural constructions of power, identity, consumerism, and sexuality. She tends to use  pronouns such as "you", "your", "I", "we", and "they" when she addresses these issues in society. Kruger used a range of different materials for her work including yarn, beads, sequins, feathers, and ribbons. These pieces represented the feminist reclamation of craft during this period.

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Jaune Quick-to-See Smith
The French-Cree, Shoshone, Salish, New Mexican artist Jaune Quick-to-See Smith makes art (mostly mixed media paintings and drawings) that repositions Native American culture within contemporary American life.

Jaune's work inspired me as she has been a tireless activist for Native women artists since the 1970's. For over 30 years Smith has continued to give a voice to Native women, through her art and numerous exhibitions she’s curated.
Earlier this month, the National Gallery of Art in Washington announced it had made history. It bought a painting by a Native American artist for the very first time. The gallery purchased I See Red: Target (see image below) a 1992 piece by Jaune Quick to see Smith, a response to the colonization of America by Christopher Columbus.
This historic moment is what Smith calls breaking the buckskin ceiling. “I have mixed emotions; I wonder how is it that I am the first Native American artist whose painting is collected by the National Gallery? It’s like we don’t exist, except in the movies or as mascots for sports teams, like the Washington Redskins or the Cleveland Indians" (Smith, 2020).

Today, Smith is one of the most internationally, acclaimed American Indian artists.

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Pamela Phatsima Sunstrum
Pamela was born in Botswana in 1980 and grew up in Africa and Asia.
She has interests in ancient mythologies and scientific theories and her work shows origins of time and ideas about the universe.
She works in pencil, watercolour and gouache (opaque watercolour) as well as animation and installations. Her work explores how her identity develops within her geographic and cultural context.

Pamela's work appealed to me as I saw depictions of what I interpreted as space or galaxies. Space and the universe is such a gigantic unknown with endless possibilities. There is the opportunity to create art from what science has shown us about the universe but also from our own imagination. This theme crossed over with ancient mythology was fascinating; bringing the future and the past together. I grew up in a household interested in history and I chose the attached piece 'Corpus (2016)' because I can see images of what seems to be ancient Egyptians. It reminds me of the Dreamwork's movie The Prince of Egypt while mutating what could be mountains or pyramids into space structures covered in solar panels.

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'I HOPE...' by Chiharu Shiota

Chiharu Shiota is a Japanese performance and installation artist who is based in Berlin. Shiota’s work appealed to me because of how intricate and detailed they seem. She is known for having huge installations, often made of materials such as thread and yarn.

I liked this particular installation because she included the wider community. She collected 6000 letters from all over the world, which had the words. “I hope..” on them. She encouraged her participants to complete the sentences with their hopes and dreams for the future in any language, or with drawings if they wished to do so. Shiota wanted to connect and comfort her audience during these uncertain times by reassuring them that hope connects us all, and to stay hopeful for the future.

“I Hope…” is her most recent work. The exhibition opened January 12th, 2021. You can visit virtually here:

https://www.koeniggalerie.com/exhibitions/28966/current-katharina-grosse-at-30/

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Shirin Neshat (born 1957)
Persian or Iranian art has a history of more than 2,500 years. One of the best known current artists is Shirin Neshat, her work includes photography, performance, film and video.
Shirin focuses on Muslim women and their position in Iranian society, how they are treated based on their religious and political circumstances, and how that influences their identities. This picture is part of a series where she explores the relationships between religion, politics, violence and feminism.

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Aamu Song - REDDRESS

Korean artist, Aamu Song creates beautiful, whimsical artworks that are inspired by her experiences of living among, and learning from, craftspeople in remote cultures around the world.

“REDDRESS” was first unveiled in London in 2011 and appeals to me in a spectacularly visceral way. It was created for comfort and well-being and is simultaneously exhilarating, soothing, expansive and intimate. REDDRESS is part installation, part performance space.

The literal Red Dress is made from 550 metres of vivid red wool, into which is sewn a virtuoso musical performer who plays to a small gathering of people, each of whom are “taken into” one of the 238 pockets of the huge garment, to relax and listen. The experience “connects the performer and the audience”, contracting both the distance and the formal nature of traditional, classical concerts. Musicians have described this as a powerful, emotional experience for the performer which is intimately shared with the small community within the "space".

Song speaks of the origins of REDDRESS as an evocation of the well-being and contentment of a small child being tucked up in a blanket.

The Red Dress can be accessed at:
https://youtu.be/OyecSKPwof0