User:Emma Rijk/M
Contents
Project Meme's
Witte de With Exposition
Project by me and Floor - Gathering negative texts about refugees combined with a matt transparent sheet in front that allows only certain words to come through.
The texts coming through the holes in the transparent sheet create a positive text about refugees
Project by Carly, Rens and Juliah - A collection of faces with texts in front of the mouth that represent the negative opinions of refugees expressed by the person on the picture below.
Project from Leontine and Cars - focusing on the human rights of people with circles stating to remember the human rights of these individuals.
Second picture of the project from Cars and Leontine
Black Lives Matter
Meaning and Impact
The meme 'Black Lives Matter' is founded by Alicia Garza in 2013. This happened after Garza wrote a comment under an article that involved police brutality against black people. Garza was soon backed up by her future co-founders Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi who helped creating the hashtag and gain popularity.
The goal of the hashtag and meme 'Black Lives Matter' is to raise awareness of police brutality against black people. It has come to attention that an alarming high amount of police officers have not been sentenced or received a mild punishment for their brutality during work hours.
The movement started in USA when a police man called George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin. Martin actually did not have a gun or any other dangerous tool with him. Because of that fact, Martin did not cause direct great danger and so, the shot fired by Zimmerman, the police was unnesecary.
This year the aruban man Mitch Henriquez was put in a 'neck grab' and sat on by 5 police men. Henriques passed away in The Netherlands, The Hague for no clear reason. The death of Henriquez brought the 'Black Lives Matter' movement to the Netherlands. This resulted in riots and protests on the streets in The Netherlands and mostly the area of Schilderswijk, The Hague.
Spreading the word
When searching in google for 'Black Lives Matter' it instantly becomes clear that most of the people spread the word through the computer. Sometimes the message stays true to the original message and sometimes it differs to racism and lines such as: 'White Lives Matter' and 'All Lives Matter'.
The part that caught my interest is the way people bring the message out in different ways then digital. The following images show some examples that proof there are other ways to get the message out:
Research
Research 1 - Billboard next to the road
Research 2 - Every age protesting
Research 3 - Neon lights
Research 4 - Set in a personal context
Research 5 - Visual communication
Research 6 - Written down in portrait
Research 7 - Text and visual double message
Research 8 - On the street in a protesting march
Exhibition Black Lives Matter
Floor Steinz and I make the group supporting the 'Black Lives Matter' meme. Together with a few other students we have created the group 'Abuse of power'. The 3 duo's creating this group have all communicated on the 3rd of september about the theme and approach. Rens van Pinxteren came with the recent news about refugees. Right now the news is mainly focused on all the refugees that flee overseas and eventually drown, or get send back. Our group wants to focus on this topic from the point of view from the politics (from the meme Women In Binders), a group covering the violence and lack of respect from authorities (the group with meme; pepper spray police), my own group will be covering the racism and inequality of value of these lives.
Floor and I brainstormed about the subject racism and inequality. We came up with the idea to take the symbol of a scale to communicate the distortion in value of lives. We have made a few sketches to find new ways to make a scale. We decided to make the scale partially 2d so Floor can use her Illustration background. The other part of the scale will be spatial so I can use my background.
To bring our meme of 'Black Lives Matter' in our piece we decided to print two hearts, one white and one black. Both hearts will be poured in a epoxy weight so they float. The black heart will be in a small weight representing the value of the heart in the context. The white heart will have a bigger weight and communicate 'more weight, more worth'. This is obviously not how we think of black and white people, but we hope this will bring consciousness to the viewers of how absurd the situation is.
The standard of the scale will be a sticker designed by Floor. The stand of the scale is not the most important part of the installation but will support the message so we decided to make that part 2d. The hearts in weights will be spatially put up in a position were the scale will point the heavier heart lower and the lighter heart higher. This part will come forward so the attention will be on the hearts.
A few pictures about the overall topic 'refugees':
Refugees, the theme of the group
Inspiration
First trial on 3d printer - unfortunatly the 'UP 3d printer' needed a proffesional cleaner for the nozzle. So the first prints failed.
Me on the left and Floor on the right. We are both keeping an eye on the 3d printer while we discuss the next steps in the process.
Some sketches as communication tool
More sketches...
The result for now - The hearts have been sand down and stripped from the support material. The next step will be painting them with lack.
One heart is painted black with a matt layer so it fits better with the white heart.
