As I was researching and writing about Kara Walker, I struggled with two components. First finding her full video pieces. Secondly being a woman of colour while consuming her work. I will discuss each respectively.
Kara Walker herself is a woman of color, and her art explores racially charged oppression, violence, and sexual violence. Along with the systematic racism that is part of American history and still has effects and influence today. Her artwork particularly the video pieces is particularly difficult to find online, despite them being one of the few mediums that would be easier to view the whole body of work online. The nature of her work challenges the audience to question their own experience with racism. Increasing the ease with which the public can access her work and share her work would increase the eyes on the work and the education and internal examination that the workforces in audiences. Thus, it could be argued that if her work was more accessible, there would be more eyes on it making it more effective in Walker's activism efforts. However, the paywall between the public and her work ensures that she gets well-deserved credit for her work both in the eyes of the public and financially.
Secondly, as a Woman of Colour (WoC) particularly a black woman, I found I was confronted with difficult topics that triggered having to confront ideas of sexism, violence, and racism. For the majority of my upbringing, I had been taught that such issues were not things that would directly affect my life. I was taught that these things were done away with by social activists who fought against them throughout the last century. As I have grown into adulthood I have come to realize that while these issues are rarely as overt as they were in the past they will forever be in the background and covertly persist affecting my life and the lives of others. Therefore art pushes its audience to question the institutions that uphold sexism, and racism, and, such violence is necessary and ought to be accessible to as wide a variety of audiences as possible. Walker's art forced me to question the effect these issues still have in my life, and on what level I knew they were still problems. Or maybe worse the realization that I had chosen complete ignorance on such subjects. Nonetheless, Kara Walker's art was a good reminder that problematic institutions are regularly being supported, and affect societal action and the lives of individuals.
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