The idea that I have for this portrait piece directly targets the school education system. More specifically, the dress code that schools focus on across all states. I plan to wear a revealing tight shirt that says, “I can’t breathe,” referring to the last words made by George Floyd. The message of the piece is to see where your attention is drawn to. The point to be made is that your attention is meant to be where the actual meaning is, such as the Black Lives Matter movement, but instead if schools would look at this they’d be more focused on the way the shirt is “distracting.” The tight shirt symbolizes a distraction, the tape symbolizes a silencer of some sort, the shoelace around my hand symbolizes connection and ties (to family, the movement, etc.),the bars in the foreground symbolize a cage/being trapped, and finally the red socks symbolize passion and anger.
The main symbol that the audience is drawn to is the constant repetition of the use of circles. One meaning of the circles is wholeness, or a “natural sense of completion.” This specific piece illustrates Zanele Muholi as a person who feels complete with themselves. They are unafraid of the true person they are and can find a sense of pride in that. The audience is also drawn to the fact that they are in bondage or tied down by these circles. A possibility for this is that they are stuck as the person they are, but that doesn’t necessarily mean a bad thing.
Photo IV Gabby Warner 