WOMEN: The Fledgling Fund: Creative Media: Very Young Girls

VERY YOUNG GIRLS

 

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ABOUT THE PROJECT

Very Young Girls is a documentary film that chronicles the journey of young women through the underground world of sexual exploitation in New York City. 

A 14-year-old girl is lured from her home, beaten, raped, held captive, and sold for sex in New York City.  The police find her -- and arrest her.

 A man who has sex with an underage girl should be prosecuted as a criminal rapist.  But there is a loophole: if the child accepts money in exchange for sex, the rapist is now a "john" and rarely is subjected to greater punishment than a fine.  For the very same act, the girl is often prosecuted as a prostitute and sent into detention.  The average age of entry into prostitution today in the United States is 13 years old.

 The United States government likes to say it leads the world in combating sexual trafficking, and grades other countries on their compliance.  If a woman has been brought from the Ukraine to Manhattan and coerced to have sex for money, the US government provides her services under the 2002 Sex Trafficking legislation.  She is a victim.  But if she is an African-American girl brought to Manhattan from the Bronx, she's a criminal and she's going to jail.

 Our double standard arises partly from myths about prostitution, promoted in the movies, song, and reality TV - girls are empowered sex workers, strung-out crack whores, greedy "hos," or hookers with hearts of gold.  Very Young Girls shows clearly, that with the average age of entry into prostitution in the United States at thirteen, that sexual exploitation is simply a commercial form of child sexual abuse, the effect of which can continue into adulthood and beyond.

 The film follows the girls in real time, using verité and intimate interviews with the girls both when they are still working and when in recovery. The film also uses footage shot by pimps themselves that illustrate exactly how it all starts.  Very Young Girls tells the story of girls who spend their teenage years being recruited and brainwashed by predatory pimps, bought and sold on the street, sent to jail, and then recovering from the trauma of sexual exploitation.

 Recovery occurs through Rachel Lloyd, who runs GEMS, the only survivor-led organization in New York that offers services to sexually exploited girls. Rachel rescued herself from sexual exploitation, and she and her staff are relentless in their mission to help girls sent by the courts to GEMS after being arrested, or found on the streets by GEMS staffers, to piece their lives back together in group therapy. But sessions reopen wounds as girls relive memories of the abusive homes they ran away from, pimps who convinced them that they were "in love" with, the nightly rapes they endured to make money so their pimp would give them attention instead of a beating; and the fear that they will never be anything but a "ho" in anyone's eyes - including their own. A few girls will succeed, some will remain suspended on the edge of two worlds, and others will be sucked back into the underground. 

Very Young Girls is changing the way law enforcement, the media, and society as a whole look at sexual exploitation.

THE FLEDGLING FUND IMPACT

Very Young Girls is a key project for The Fledgling Fund in the area of Girls Education and Empowerment. We look for projects that not only bring attention to the range of issues that affect vulnerable young women, but also can be effective educational tools for young girls, social service providers, advocates and other stakeholders.  It is our hope that Very Young Girls will inspire change within social and juvenile justice systems and provide hope and positive role models for vulnerable young women by highlighting the work of dedicated individuals like Rachel Lloyd and her colleagues at G.E.M.S. To that end, we provided finishing funds for the film as well as funds for the development and implementation of an outreach and audience engagement plan for the film.  We have also provided operating support for G.E.M.S. to support their important work with sexually exploited girls.

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A Look at the Harrowing Lives of Child Prostitutes

Child ProstitutesA scene from “Very Young Girls,” David Schisgall’s documentary film about child prostitution and sex trafficking in New York City. (Photos: Swinging T Productions)

Dominique ran away from her home in the Bronx at 13, fleeing domestic violence. She quickly fell under the sway of a man who soon had her circling the blocks of Hell’s Kitchen, looking for johns. She explained the pimp’s influence this way: “He used to get into bed with me and used to, like, hold me like I was his kid. … He took care of me.”

“Very Young Girls” is an 83-minute documentary film that opens on Friday at the IFC Center in Greenwich Village. This is the film’s first commercial release; it received critical acclaim at its premiere last September at the Toronto International Film Festival. (See a review by Jeannette Catsoulis of The Times.)

The film offers a vivid and disturbing look at the sexual exploitation and trafficking of teenage girls in New York City. The average age of girls when they enter the sex industry is 13. The girls interviewed in the film — all identified by their real first names, except for one given the pseudonym Nicole — were participants in a New York-based nonprofit advocacy group, Girls Educational and Mentoring Services, which was established in 1998 by Rachel Lloyd, a former prostitute, originally from England, who has dedicated her career to combating human trafficking and sexual exploitation of girls. GEMS now works with about 200 girls a year.

The first part of the film intersperses interviews with the girls with scenes shot by two brothers, Anthony and Chris Griffith, who taped their exploits in the New York area as pimps for what they hoped could become a cable television series. (The brothers were ultimately convicted of trafficking minors across state lines and were sentenced to 10 years in federal prison; the videos were used as evidence.)

Among the girls interviewed are Shaneiqua, a former A student who craved affection and described her first time having sex with her pimp in this way: “I thought that was the best thing that ever happened to me — the best, best.” Soon the man, nearly 20 years her senior, told her, “I would love you a lot more if you brought in more money.” After the first time she had sex for money, she said, “My whole body just felt dead.”

Another girl, Shaquanna, 15, is shown on a hospital bed, ingesting liquid medication that had been injected into a cup of Jell-O for her. She had been found on the side of a road, unconscious; she could not remember who had attacked her. Yet even in her painful condition — bruised, bloodied, her front teeth missing and chipped — she expresses relief. “I was praying for a situation to happen so that I’d be able to go home.”

The filmmaker, David Schisgall, said he had been making films about young people in war zones for MTV’s “True Life” series. “International sex trafficking was on our list of topics,” he said in a phone interview. “In the course of our search we found that there was trafficking going on in the United States that nobody was talking about.”

Mr. Schisgall, 40, who grew up in the Maryland suburbs outside Washington, said the “audience response has been overwhelmingly positive.” He said the film would be broadcast on Showtime in December.

He said he believed that the criminal justice system treated child prostitutes as criminals, rather than as victims. “It struck me as a great scandal,” he said, “and also as a great story.”

The girls make clear why leaving the men who exploit them is not easy. As one girl, Kim, tried to pack her suitcases, she recalled, her pimp “told me the next time I leave, he’s going to put me in a suitcase.”

Another former prostitute, Martha, put it this way: “I am his investment. I am his way of getting money. At the end of the day, if you think about it, a pimp does nothing more but collect the money.”

But the emotional ties are even stronger, in some cases, than the threat of violence and the relationships of economic dependence.

Ms. Lloyd, who was an executive producer for the film, says in the film: “Our primary competition is pimps. They’re spending 110 percent of their time and energy on recruiting, on brainwashing, on making this girl feel loved and special, and pulling her back in every time that she almost leaves. This has been four years of her life, from 12 to 16. He’s 35. He basically raised her.”

Ms. Lloyd is shown winning a human rights award from Reebok, the athletic footwear company. In her acceptance speech, she says that many Americans recognize sexual exploitation in countries like the Philippines, Thailand and Ukraine, but not in their own backyards. “When it’s happening two blocks away from this auditorium, when it’s happening in Bedford-Stuyvesant or Hunts Point or Queens Plaza, we look the other way.”

DominiqueDominique says in the film that she ran away from her family at 13 because of domestic violence. She quickly fell under the influence of a pimp.

The film pulls few punches. Though it portrays the girls as victims, it does not hide the consequences of their actions. “Can you sit back and think about that, of what your mother must have felt?” Miranda, Dominique’s mom, asks her, describing her daughter’s actions as “despicable.”

The film provides only a fleeting glimpse at the men who patronize prostitutes, showing a scene from the “Brooklyn John School,” a program in which men arrested for patronizing prostitutes complete an educational course and have their charges dismissed if they stay out of trouble for six months.

Several of the girls in the movie made it out of the sex trade. Mr. Schisgall said that Shaquanna, the girl who had been beaten and hospitalized, recently graduated as the valedictorian of her high school class in New York City.

Other girls had less certain futures. One, Ebony, became a prostitute at 15 and moved to Miami to be with a pimp. Despite Ms. Lloyd’s efforts to save her — including tracking her down during a vacation to Miami — Ebony ultimately returns to the street life, in part because she cannot stand the disapprobation and stares of her neighbors during a brief return to New York.

“I’d rather have him beat me than being over where people are looking at me sideways,” Ebony says, adding, “I have a home in Miami where I can go back to with no problem.”

Feet Clap
The shoes of “Nicole,” who was arrested at 14 on prostitution charges. Her lawyer said Nicole’s pimp expected her to have sex with 30 men over four or five days.
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SPORTS: Liz Cambage - rising star

Thursday, April 14, 2011

rising star

 

She's considered as Australian Basketball's next big thing!!!

Her name is Liz Cambage. 

Born in London to Nigerian father and Australian mother, she moved to Australia with her mother when she was very young. She started playing basketball at the age of 10 and hated it at first. But now at 19 and 2.04m tall, she is literally Australia's rising star. She recently helped her WNBL side, Bulleen Boomers, to their inaugural Australian premiership and a few days ago she was drafted at No. 2 in the WNBA for the Tulsa Shock in Oklahoma. I won't be surprised if she helps the Australian Women's Basketball team to the podium at the 2012 London Olympics!

 

I am truly feeling her half-shaved look with the long hair! HOT!

 

 

 



 



SOURCE: THE AGE & ZIMBIO

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Bouncing Boomer's high hopes

Carol Nader
March 26, 2011

Bulleen Boomers centre Liz Cambage relaxes at home.

Bulleen Boomers centre Liz Cambage relaxes at home. Photo: Angela Wylie

THE new kid who was dark and unusually tall was a natural target. But when the young Liz Cambage was picked on at school, she gave as good as she got. However, her mother thought her daughter's energy would be better invested elsewhere, and coaxed her into playing basketball.

At first, 10-year-old Cambage loathed it. ''I hated it at the start and hated the Sunday mornings,'' she recalls. But soon she got her first basket and developed a taste for the sport.

Now 19 and 203 centimetres tall, the Bulleen Boomers centre is a strong chance to achieve a feat that only one Australian woman has accomplished before. Next month, Cambage will head to the US, where she is tipped to be the first or second draft pick in the prestigious Women's National Basketball Association. Lauren Jackson is the only Australian woman to have been first pick in the US draft, 10 years ago.

Head and shoulders above her childhood teammates.

Head and shoulders above her childhood teammates.

 

Cambage is remarkably cool about her prospects. ''It's out of my hands,'' she says.

Cambage has strong women behind her. Her mother Julia Cambage was a single mother, and in the past few years her grandmother, Aileen Roberts, has lived with them and helped her granddaughter meet her training commitments.

Born in London, Cambage came to Australia as a baby with her mother when her parents separated. Her father is Nigerian.

Liz Cambage with her mother and grandmother.

Liz Cambage with her mother and grandmother. Photo: Angela Wylie

 

Much of her childhood was spent in New South Wales. She and her mother moved to Mornington when she was 10.

Both her parents are at least 182 centimetres tall. Her height provides clear advantages on court but it can come at a price off the court.

''She's a good kid … I don't know how she stands it when she's in the shops and people stop and stare,'' Ms Roberts says.

But Cambage doesn't notice the stares. ''Mum calls me 'Bliv' because I'm oblivious to it.''

Cambage confesses to spending free time with friends ghost hunting in old derelict buildings. ''It's an adrenalin rush really.''

So how do you know you've found a ghost? ''You get poo in your pants!'' she giggles.

She has all the girliness of a 19-year-old who likes to dress up, although she confides that finding a dress that doesn't reveal too much leg is an issue.

Her coach Tom Maher says what makes her coveted in the game is not just her size but her athleticism. ''She kills them with her speed; she's athletic, so she can jump. She has everything.''

But what might stop her from going at No. 1 is American college player Maya Moore. Maher says it is easier for a club in the US to go with a local because there is less likelihood of a clash with a player's commitments to their national team. ''If two people are even, it's a safer bet to go with the local,'' he says.

Basketball Australia's high-performance general manager, Wayne Carroll confirms the tension. With the Olympics next year, he says: ''We would like our players to be here for a dedicated exclusive period to develop as a team, and what we would ideally like is for them to not play for the 2012 WNBA season.''

If Cambage goes one or two, she will play for Minnesota or Tulsa. She would like to keep playing for Bulleen in the Australian WNBL too. Before she goes to the US, she is also favourite to win the most valuable player award in the Australian WNBL.

It's a long way from being an awkward 10-year-old. Says Maher: ''It would have been easy for a girl that big, that tall and different to be introverted, or to not be a joiner, to hide away. But she's the opposite of that.''

 

VIDEO: Everybody's Children by Monika Delmos - NFB

Everybody's Children

Monika Delmos's documentary captures a year in the life of two teenage refugees, Joyce and Sallieu, who have left their own countries to make a new life in Ontario. Joyce, 17, left the Democratic Republic of Congo to avoid being forced into prostitution by her family. Sallieu, 16, had witnessed the murder of his mother as a young boy in wartorn Sierra Leone. Delmos follows them as they bear the normal pressures of being a teenager while simultaneously undergoing the refugee application process. She shows how the guidance and support of a handful of people make a real difference in the day-to-day lives of these children.

via nfb.ca

 

PUB: Call For Submissions - St. Somewhere Journal

All New Submissions Will Be Considered for the Winter 2011 Issue.
St. Somewhere Journal


Submission Guidelines

St. Somewhere Journal is published quarterly, with new issues being released in October, January, April and July. We accept English language submissions for publication in our online journal. Works written in English lexicon dialect/creole are also encouraged, as well as translations. Submissions are accepted via email only. 

We welcome all genres, though we lean toward what is typically referred to as literary. The Caribbean region is our primary focus, with secondary emphasis on surrounding areas, such as the Coastal South of the United States. Work that has a strong connection to these areas, either literally or philosophically, has the best chance of acceptance. However, quality always has an appeal, regardless of subject matter. 


Fiction: Please submit short fiction of 5,000 words or less. Submit your fiction as an attached document or in the body of your email. We prefer a web-friendly format, meaning that we'd appreciate it if you'd single space your paragraphs and double space between paragraphs, with no indentations.

Poetry: Any form is acceptable. Unlike some publications, we have no particular bias for or against rhyming poetry or free verse. Send no more than 5 poems, single spaced in the body of your email.

Essay: Please submit essays of 5,000 words or less. Submit your essay as an attached document, or in the body of your email. We prefer a web-friendly format (see above under "fiction"). For our purposes, we consider an essay to be literary, film or cultural criticism, book reviews or creative non-fiction.

Visual Art: Submissions of visual art will be accepted and considered for use as cover art for our publication, as well as interior art. Scanned images of visual works are acceptable, but photography is particularly encouraged. For photography that includes identifiable individuals, you must be able to provide a copy of a signed model release form. Please submit your art work as an attachment in .jpg format.


Submitting: All submissions should be sent via email to: editor AT stsomewherejournal.com

Subject lines should be formatted as follows:

Submission - Fiction

Submission - Poetry

Submission - Art

Submission - Essay


Include your real name, pseudonym (if any) and a brief bio of no more than 150 words. If you have a website related to your writing or art, please provide a link. Please include all of this information in both the body of your email, as well as in any attached documents.

Simultaneous submissions are welcome, but we expect an immediate notification if your work has been accepted elsewhere. Previously published work is not generally accepted, though exceptions may be made, particularly for previously self-published work (including personal websites). 

PUB: Scholarly Residencies :: The Rockefeller Foundation

The Bellagio Center

A quiet setting for focused work.  A place to connect with dynamic innovators from across the globe.  A multi-sectoral community committed to solving the greatest challenges facing our world.  

The Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center, through conferences and residency programs, supports the work of scholars, artists, thought leaders, policymakers and practitioners who share in the Foundation’s pioneering mission to “promote the well-being of humanity.”  The Center has a record of major impact, from meetings that led to the Green Revolution and the Global AIDS vaccine initiative, to residencies that furthered Michael Ondaatje’s work on The English Patient and Bill T. Jones’ choreography.  This legacy, the serene work environment on the shore of Lake Como in northern Italy, the diverse groups of people, and the promise of future achievements makes Bellagio an inspiring and productive forum for fostering positive change.

The Bellagio Experience

The Bellagio Residency program offers scholars, artists, thought leaders, policymakers and practitioners a serene setting conducive to focused, goal-oriented work, and the unparalleled opportunity to establish new connections with fellow residents, across a stimulating array of disciplines and geographies. The Bellagio Center community generates new knowledge to solve some of the most complex problems facing our world and creates art that inspires reflection, understanding, and imagination.

The Center sponsors three kinds of residencies—for scholars, creative artists and practitioners. Scholarly residencies last four weeks. We are especially interested in applicants whose work connects in some way with the Rockefeller Foundation’s issue areas, and we also select each cohort for diversity to ensure that interdisciplinary and international connections remain an integral part of the Bellagio experience. In addition, the Center offers collaborative residencies for two to four people working on the same project.

Collegial interaction with other residents is an essential dimension of the Bellagio experience. Meals and informal presentations of residents' work afford an opportunity for dynamic discussion and engagement within and across disciplines. During special dinners, residents often interact with participants in international conferences hosted in other buildings on the Center's grounds. 


Selection Process and Criteria

The Foundation seeks applications from scholars at all career stages with a record of significant achievement in their field. Applicants from developing countries are particularly encouraged to apply.

Decisions are based on:

  • the quality of the proposed project,
  • how innovative the project is and how likely it is to have broad impact or influence,
  • the ability of the applicant to articulate the project’s purpose and goals,
  • the professional qualifications and achievements of the applicant, and
  • the suitability and value of the Bellagio Center for the proposed activity.

In addition, reviewers will also take into consideration:

  • the relevance of the project to the Foundation’s mission (including related social, political, economic, cultural and gender issues)
  • personal qualities that are likely to make an applicant a contributing member of an international, interdisciplinary community—curiosity, breadth of interests, ability to honor other viewpoints and sensitivity to other cultures.

Because the Center aims to host an international mix of residents, the geography and nationality of those invited may be taken into account.

See full application requirements


Facility Information

Residents are housed in two main buildings and each resident is given a private room with a bath and a study/studio, either adjoining the bedroom or on the grounds. High-speed Internet access is available free of charge in all bedrooms and most studies. A small library includes basic reference books and online research tools; the works of many former residents and those resulting from Bellagio meetings are also available.

Spouses/life partners may accompany residents. Accommodations are not available for children, other family members, friends or pets. Room and board are provided to all residents and their spouses/partners, but they are responsible for their airfare and local transportation to and from Bellagio. However, the Foundation does have a limited travel assistance program, based on income level of invited residents.

Several resident suites are available for those with restricted mobility, and several of the buildings now include an elevator. Nonetheless, prospective applicants should be aware that the hillside setting of the facility and the surrounding area restricts the mobility of persons who have difficulty walking or climbing stairs.

The Center is not equipped to provide medical services or assisted care. The nearest major hospital is in Lecco, a 40-minute drive away.

 

PUB: The $3,500 Profiles in Diversity Journal's University Writing Competition|Writers Afrika

The $3,500 Profiles in Diversity Journal's

University Writing Competition

 

Deadline: 1 May 2011

University Writing Competition: Profiles in Diversity Journal

* First Place: $2,000
* Second Place: $1,000
* Third Place: $500

o Top 3 will be published in an upcoming issue and also given future writing opportunities with Profiles in Diversity Journal
o Top 50 will be published in a special printed publication
o Top 100 will be featured in weekly posts on www.diversityjournal.com

Guidelines:

* 500 to 1,000 words
* 18 and over to enter
* Currently enrolled in higher educational institution
* Essays must be submitted online

Topic: Diversity

* Subtopics:

o Academic
o Cultural
o Organizational/Team

Judging Criteria:

Essays will be judged according to the following criteria; Originality of subject and thought, extent of research and quality of writing.

Submission:

Submit your essays to write@diversityjournal.com. Be sure to include:

* First & Last Name
* School
* Area of Study

All entries must be submitted by May 1, 2011. Only the top fifty will be notified by email, so check back regularly for updates and be sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

More information here.

 

 

 

INTERVIEW: Jericho Brown—Boxing the Octopus: If This Doesn't Inspire You, Nothing Will: A Conversation with American Book Award Winner Jericho Brown

If This Doesn't Inspire You, Nothing Will:

A Conversation with

American Book Award Winner

Jericho Brown

In keeping with Jerusha's fabulous posts on National Poetry Month, we're going to be interviewing several poets in the coming weeks and discussing their work. For our first poet, we welcome Jericho Brown, whose debut poetry collection, Please drew immediate attention all over the world, garnering him the Whiting award, an NEA fellowship, and the 2009 American Book Award. Introducing Jericho is a little like trying to introduce God. There's so much presence and power there, you just want to get on out of the way. That said, here he is. Prepare to be wowed.

In PLEASE, you incorporate snippets of music and echoes of legends, all the while mixing in bits and pieces of your own background and life. Where did you get the inspiration to bring all these elements together, and what resonance does music have for you?

Through metaphor and music, poems collapse time and space, make present what only seems to exist in memory with transformative clarity. I never thought of bringing the elements you mention together as anything other than my job as a poet. I think a poet should write about that by which she is wracked. I love a lot of popular music, so making use of it as subject matter or as artifice wasn’t an idea I got from anywhere; it was my responsibility.

I love music because it makes me think and feel alive and wonder. It makes me reconsider what talent is and can be. It provides me with a set of metaphors that I use to understand other art forms—including my own writing and revising.

Some reviewers have commented on how your work is a beautiful walk between darkness and light. Was that balance intentional on your part, or is it just something that flows from your soul?

Hmm…when you put it that way, I wonder what flows from anyone’s soul other than darkness and light, Kathryn. I think art manages to capture the contradictory aspects of being a human being…or maybe that’s just a defining characteristic of the art I admire most. I know that words on hallmark cards aren’t art because they mean to be all light. I know the words out of the mouths of men beating their wives are not art because they mean to be all darkness. So yes, the balance is intentional, but it’s intentionality shouldn’t be as special as reviewers of my work may make it seem. Maybe the comment they really mean to make is that the balance isn’t there in enough of contemporary American poetry, that this is how poems of late fail us. If they think my poems succeed in that way, I am grateful, but I don’t see any other way to succeed.

Your work has, just out of the gate, received an overwhelmingly positive response. How has this affected your creative process, and do you see it changing as a result?

There’s the easy answer to this that would assure me continued positive response, and then there is the honest answer. Both answers are true.

The easy answer, what I’m supposed to say, is that I’m quite surprised that so many people from so many walks of life and varying backgrounds enjoy and champion my work. In this answer, I should also say that, while I know current response is positive, it says nothing about whether or not the work will actually last beyond my life and that the immortality of the poems is what’s most important to me.

The honest answer, the one that makes those who confer positive response nervous, is that this is just what I wanted and feel that I was working toward as I aligned words on the page and none of it is yet enough. I want people to read my poems and love them and send me the emails of praise they send about them. I also want some sense within my lifetime that my work changes the way some people think about literature and that my work changes the way some people think. I believe in poetry—that it can make things happen and that it doesn’t have to wait until anyone is dead to get started at its labor in doing so.

Both the easy and the honest answers to the first part of your question live in my mind like an old married couple who still like to make love. As for the affect any positive response has had on my process, I have to say that there’s little I can’t do when people believe in me. I always feel like a person in the world who managed to get a great deal done without the emotional or financial support of my parents, so any kind of encouragement makes me go to bed later and wake earlier because I feel responsible to more than myself. I don’t want to make a liar out of anyone who says that Jericho Brown is a good poet, and I won’t make a liar out of my 23 year old self who said this will be my life, my living, my source of integrity to which I shall forever be true.

 

CULTURE: Beauty, Power, and Liminality: A conversation on Black Beauty movements > Black Atlantic Resource Debate

Beauty, Power, and Liminality: A conversation on Black Beauty movements from the Lecture Series Beauty and the Black Body

To be misrepresented, one’s image is falsified, distorted, warped, loaded, and perverted.  How does that image get corrected, when is one represented? On Saturday February 19, Rutgers University Newark addressed just these questions at The 31st Anniversary of The Marion Thompson Wright Lecture Series Beauty and the Black Body: history, aesthetics and politics. Through five lecturers, a range of historical and contemporary images of African Americans where analyzed showcasing how African Americans re-represented themselves through beauty-focused themes. The opening of Posing Beauty at Newark Museum followed the symposium, leading to a full day of critical appreciation of the portrait in photography by Black Americans.

The curator of the exhibition, Deborah Willis started the symposium by posing the question that has been addressed in her research, “Are you essentializing blackness?” To this, Willis explains that her research as exemplified in the exhibition, and book of the same name, Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present (New York 2009) aims to examine those historical/iconic images that depicted the black body. For Willis and the other scholars, it is important to read the stories behind those images. And that is precisely what Willis does.

To view a full version of this post including discussion of images of the ‘Hottentot Venus’ and  Madame C J Walker, and issues raised by speakers: Richard Powell, Maxine Craig, and Tiffany Gill click here.

Contributed by: Zemen Kidane

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RESEARCH - EVENT OR WORK

Beauty, Power, and Liminality:
A conversation on Black Beauty movements from the
Lecture Series Beauty and the Black Body


To be misrepresented, one’s image is falsified, distorted, warped, loaded, and perverted.  How does that image get corrected, when is one represented? On Saturday February 19, Rutgers University Newark addressed just these questions at The 31st Anniversary of The Marion Thompson Wright Lecture Series Beauty and the Black Body: history, aesthetics and politics. Through five lecturers, a range of historical and contemporary images of African Americans where analyzed showcasing how African Americans re-represented themselves through beauty-focused themes. The opening ofPosing Beauty at Newark Museum followed the symposium, leading to a full day of critical appreciation of the portrait in photography by Black Americans.

The curator of the exhibition, Deborah Willis started the symposium by posing the question that has been addressed in her research, “Are you essentializing blackness?” To this, Willis explains that her research as exemplified in the exhibition, and book of the same name, Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present (New York 2009) aims to examine those historical/iconic images that depicted the black body. For Willis and the other scholars, it is important to read the stories behind those images. And that is precisely what Willis does.

She displayed many photographs, some of famous people, others of unknowns. The first sets of pictures were derogatory caricatures of the black female body such as Black Venus or Hottentot as she is also known. These images of Hottentot were based on Saartje Baartman, who was sold as a slave and paraded through European countries to examine her ‘African body’.  Willis used these perverted images of the Black Venus to set a contrast of how the black body was exploited versus how African Americans created their own images of beauty, and tracing the aesthetic transformations of black beauty.

Her first example of black agency in promoting beauty was through the first African American woman millionaire, Madame CJ Walker, who made her millions by creating beauty products for black women. In the portrait of Walker, Willis pointed to Walker’s arms behind her back as a reference to Walker’s desire not to show her hard worked hands. Willis made the connection to Walkers products that aim to allow women who worked hard in the fields to revert the damage done by the work. This explanation of Walker’s products (such as hair growers) is contrary to many current views held about black hair products Europeanizing ‘natural’ black appearance.

The three speakers following Willis’ lecture emphasized beauty as activism through three different lenses. Richard Powell continued Willis’ discussion on African American portraits with more contemporary examples, all from Willis book, Posing Beauty. Powell endearingly encouraged the audience, especially the youth, to hold on to our pictures as some day a scholar like himself can use them to reflect on life today. Maxine Craig discussed the role of African American beauty queens and the contrast of social responsibilities they held in their titles versus white beauty queens who tended to distance themselves from politics or the pride in the crown. Tiffany Gill analyzed the role of black beauty shops throughout history as creating a safe space for women to restore pride. Each scholars examples where coupled with portrait photography that highlighted their points.

The first four speakers each gave riveting historical and contemporary cultural critiques of the images of and by African Americans. Yet, it was odd to end this discussion with the last lecture by Okwui Enwezor. He did not discuss African American beauty through portraits. Instead, he discussed liminality through the photographic portrait in general. Enwezor began with the assertion that photography has been a tool for propaganda. This is because the photographer can never be truly objective as the photograph was an even of a momentary perception.  But his main point was to point to portrait photography as simultaneously placing an individual in a timeless/spaceless position while posing them as a representative for a larger idea. There lies an intersubjectivity in the portrait, as the subject is the individual and the aesthetic that symbolizes a greater concept.
 
The level of organization and complimentary nature of each scholar’s work created a truly engaging symposium that educated the audience on the past and future of envisioning black identity.  Newark Museum’s opening of Posing Beauty depicted many photographs that Willis and the other lecturers highlighted in their presentations. Being in an exhibition space of portraits of African Americans from various periods and wildly different personalities created a conversation. The historical transformations of fashion and beauty throughout the century also showcased the personalities of the individuals that exuded through the frames. As Okwui Enwezor explained, there exists a “Democracy of the photographic image” and in the imaginary community (as realized in the Newark Museum space) a dialogue lingers about how to represent Black Identity.

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Contributed by: Zemen Kidane, Curatorial Fellow

>via: http://www.liv.ac.uk/csis/blackatlantic/research/MoCADA_Posing_Beauty.htm