Wednesday, May 23, 2012

How do white people look?

Chicago-based Photographer Myra Greene has a very interesting project going called "My white friends." I read about it here and was struck by her observation: I recognize it when I’m the only black person in a room. My white friends will notice I’m the only black person, too. But they don’t notice a room full of white people. In this series she works with her friends, sometimes photographing them in a naturalistic space, sometimes in a scene where they act out what they think whiteness looks like, sometimes in compositions of her own. Lovely pictures and thought-provoking, using all registers of the photographic medium to raise questions about gaze, social location, privilege, stereotypes, friendship and, of course, photographic practices themselves.