Extra Credit

The themes of the exhibition, Selfie: Us and Them are the way that the artists see themselves and how the world around them see them. The projects touch on the identity of women, depression, how we have many things to fix in ourselves, and how we deal with the world around us.

The gallery is a critique of how the world sees women as well as how media affects us. One of the artworks was a television that shows the view the artists would have if she lifted her head when she waited for the bus, opposed to looking down on her phone. That shows how we have been absorbed by technology that we don’t really take time to live in the world.

One of the projects that I found interesting was by Stephanie Quispilaya. In her artwork she drew herself as a mother pig as well as her piglets.  All of the piglets had different needs and personalities. The piglets ranged from hyper to needy, to envious to sad, etc. Her piece showed how as a woman there are many aspects and responsibilities that are supposed to be met, and sometimes you are the one that needs most of the nurturing and attention. In addition she draws herself as a mother pig showing yet another expectation that women are to meet. She is address the self by making all of the pigs look like her, this way she is showing what she sees in herself. She sees all the needs and the fact that she has to fix and take care of all of them as mothers and women are expected to do.

      A second project that caught my attention was one where the artist created meme-like posters and asked her family to write

Mediha Sandhu is also an artist at the gallery, and her project caught my attention. In her video there are two sides. One is a woman that appears to be happy and fixing her hijab, while in the other she is screaming and losing her calm. This is to show how even though sometimes people show that they are all right on the outside, what may be on the inside may be completely different. The artist explained that she has suffered with depression, but on the outside she looked happy and because of this people wouldn’t believe that she was dealing with a lot more.

      These works can be activists because they show a side of women that people don’t usually take notice in and put too much pressure on. Sandhu addresses the fact that she has to deal with people not believing that she is depressed because she is typically seen as a happy person. Quispilaya address the expectation of women to be nurturing and to be mothers, but also all of the things that one has to deal with like the different aspects of our self needs and personalities.

The artists address the selfie by putting themselves in their artwork. They address identity by revealing something about themselves that is not usually seen. That is the case of both Sandhu and Quispilaya, they both put an aspect of themselves like quietly dealing with depression and the fact that there are so many demands and needs that we have to put up within ourselves.