Not Only Will I Stare, I Want My Look to Change Reality
“There is power in looking; the gaze has been and is a site of resistance.”
The focus in this series of drawings and paintings titled ‘Not Only Will I Stare, I Want My Look to Change Reality’ lies in the looks, looks that are seen as confrontational, as gestures of resistance and challenges to authority. The gaze is political; it can be dangerous. As bell hooks put it, “There is power in looking; the gaze has been and is a site of resistance.” In relations of power, we learn experientially that there is a critical gaze, one that “looks” to document and one that is oppositional; one learns to look a certain way to resist.
The works have been displayed in the exhibition ‘Coming Together’ at Stoa Gallery, Helsinki, 2022