{"id":803,"date":"2016-01-30T01:41:52","date_gmt":"2016-01-30T01:41:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/?p=803"},"modified":"2016-01-30T22:50:20","modified_gmt":"2016-01-30T22:50:20","slug":"black-presentation-and-authenticity-through-photography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/?p=803","title":{"rendered":"Black Presentation and Authenticity through Photography"},"content":{"rendered":"

who’s hair isn’t done \/ let me get in that head\u00a0honey \/ the day is lace and crinolines \/ curls, satins, and layers of beauty \/ who’s mama wouldn’t be proud \/ who’s eye won’t be turned when \/ i saunter outta this room where \/ the magic is and become it –\u00a0The Sweet Breath of Life<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

And they has a party every Saturday night \/ usually not no big party \/ Just neighbors and home folks…But it’s nice to young folks all dressed up going somewhere–maybe to a party. But it’s sad if you ain’t invited.<\/p>\n

The Sweet Flypaper of Life<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A number of continuities exist between Shange and Kamoinge’s\u00a0The Sweet Breath of Life\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Langston Hughes and Roy DeCarava’s\u00a0The Sweet Flypaper of Life,\u00a0<\/em>including authentic representations of black families and neighborhoods, and the power of pairing image and text.<\/p>\n

One important continuity between the two pieces is the depiction\u00a0of “doing hair” as a method of presentation, bonding, and self-care.\u00a0Another continuity between the two pieces is “the porch” which serves as a barrier between the home and the street. The porch could be seen as a barrier between what black people present on the outside\u00a0and what they experience on the inside. It could also be seen as a communal, intergenerational space for family and loved ones to gather, or a connector<\/em> between the inside and the outside.<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a>

From “porches” – The Sweet Breath of Life<\/p><\/div>\n

The exploration of\u00a0porches and doing hair in\u00a0both pieces\u00a0facilitates a better understanding of black photography, specifically. Photography’s preoccupation with ideas like presentation, authenticity, intimacy, etc. uniquely intersects with ideas of self-identification, performativity, and erasure that permeate blackness and the black experience. This series of images and text\u00a0presents black people’s daily life rituals, like sitting on the porch or doing hair, as involved in their\u00a0experience with\u00a0presentation and authenticity.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As we continue exploring\u00a0Shange’s work, it is important to\u00a0recognize\u00a0the ways that black people seek to present themselves, the ways that\u00a0image\/text can present blackness and black people, and to what degree we can find authenticity in these presentations.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

who’s hair isn’t done \/ let me get in that head\u00a0honey \/ the day is lace and crinolines \/ curls, satins, and layers of beauty \/ who’s mama wouldn’t be proud \/ who’s eye won’t be turned when \/ i saunter outta this room where \/ the magic is and become it –\u00a0The Sweet Breath […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,57,1],"tags":[280,271,39,272,284,282,281,283],"class_list":["post-803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogposts","category-student-blogpost","category-uncategorized","tag-black-hair","tag-kamoinge","tag-langston-hughes","tag-photography","tag-porches","tag-roy-decarava","tag-the-sweet-breath-of-life","tag-the-sweet-flypaper-of-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=803"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":853,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803\/revisions\/853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}