WRITING
Beyond Photography: How Does Visual Activism Function to Ensure Awareness on Intersectionality and Provide Visibility on Social Injustices?
By Siobhan Jackson
What is Visual Activism & Intersectionality?
Visual activism as a practice involves working with visual culture as a mode of communication to express a social, political, or economic statement. To elaborate on the concept, Nicolas Mirzoeff states that today, we can actively use visual culture to create new self-images, new ways to see and be seen, and new ways to see the world (Mirzoeff, 2015, p. 297). The act of using visual culture as a form of activism can be seen using a range of visible and artistic mediums. However, within this discussion it will be focusing closely on the use of photography and its function within visual activism. Almost from the time it was invented, photography was recognised by photographers and social activists as a great ‘activist’ tool for people who wanted to expose social injustices (Bogre, 2012). The medium provides a vision on the unseen aspects of the world and uses visibility to raise awareness to the viewer of social, political, and economic injustices. Therefore, the function of photography challenges the ways we see and understand the world around us (Wilkinson, 2015), making it a convenient medium for activism thus creating visual activism. Visual activism has been practiced by many photographers in order to raise awareness on social injustices and demand visibility. The functionality of the medium has provided a platform where photographers can use the visual as a tool to inform viewers on the lives of the minority and the experiences that are inflicted by the intersectionality of race, class, gender, and sexuality.
The term intersectionality is used to understand how forms of social categories such as race, gender, class, and sexuality are not singular factors but instead overlap and intersect as multiple factors of discrimination. It is often claimed that the term was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in her 1989 paper Demarlginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Anti-discrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics. Within the paper, Crenshaw informs the viewer on how Black women can experience discrimination in a number of ways and that applying a single-issue framework for discrimination continues to make the goal of ending racism and patriarchy even more unachievable. By using a traffic accident as an example to describe the experiences lived by Black women, Crenshaw claimed:
Consider an analogy to traffic in an intersection, coming and going in all four directions. Discrimination, like traffic through an intersection, may flow in one direction, and it may flow in another. If an accident happens in an intersection, it can be caused by cars traveling from any number of directions and, sometimes, from all of them. Similarly, if a Black woman is harmed because she is in the intersection, her injury could result from sex discrimination or race discrimination (Crenshaw, 1989, p.149).
After Crenshaw introduced the term intersectionality, it was widely adopted because it managed to encompass in a single word the simultaneous experience of the multiple oppressions faced by Black women (Smith, 2013). Its functionality shed light on how Black women’s lives were being neglected within the forms of discrimination, as it was mostly considered that sex discrimination was based on white women’s experiences and racial discrimination was based on the experiences of Black men. To critique how visual activism functions there has to be an understanding on how photographs can provide visibility for issues such as intersectionality and how the practice succeeds in educating the viewer on social injustices.
Black Lives Matter Movement
Understanding the functionality of visual activism and seeing how important applying an intersectionality theory within a social movement is can be seen within the Black Lives Matter Movement. The history behind the movement began when Patrisse Cullors, Opal Tometi, and Alicia Garza created the hashtag #blacklivesmatter in the wake of the verdict that exonerated George Zimmerman for the murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in July 2013 (MacDonald and Dobrowolsky, 2020, p. 242). As the hashtag grew popular the female activists began to build a network for fellow activists who wanted to spread the awareness of racial injustices, using the hashtag to create the racial justice movement which is Black Lives Matter. It is however, important to note that it is not the female leaders which we associate the movement with but the victims who have drawn attention to the massive issues of racism: George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, to name a few (Maqbool, 2020). It is therefore understandable that through the power of social media and online-activism, the movement progressed into a powerful space for Black people (and allies) to come together to denounce racism and protest for change regarding social equity, police brutality and abuse of power (Oshodi, 2020). As the movement grew and continued to spread awareness on the countless Black lives that were being taken due to police violence, there was a realisation that the names being voiced and shared were mostly in fact all Black men, whilst the names of Black women who had too also been killed by the police were being excluded and silenced among their male counterparts. In 2014, this exclusion led Kimberlé Crenshaw to create the #SayHerName campaign which combined social media activism, political education, and protests to bring attention to violence against Black women (Brown, Ray, Summers and Fraistat, 2017). The purpose of the campaign allowed women to be a part of the conversation revolved around racial injustice and spread awareness on the fact that “Black women have been killed in many of the same circumstances as their brothers, fathers and sons… and their losses just haven't registered in the same way,” (Mehta and Blanchard, 2020). Furthermore, as the #SayHerName campaign set out to spread awareness on the names of women victims whose stories corresponded with the same violence as the Black male victims, it is important to note that the campaign does associate itself with the Black Lives Matter movement. The campaign claimed that it seeks to “honour the intention of the #BlackLivesMatter movement to lift up the intrinsic value of all Black lives by serving as a resource to answer the increasingly persistent call for attention to Black women killed by the politics” (MacDonald and Dobrowolsky, 2020, p. 250). To review, the #SayHerName campaign acknowledged the exclusion these Black women were experiencing and also provided insight on the intersection of multiple discriminations that Black women face that leaves them being neglected. The campaign provided support to the Black Lives Matter movement by becoming a resource that allowed the public to understand the Black female victims that were not being addressed within the conversation which needed to be changed.
Fig 1, Stephen Lovekin, New York City, 2020
Moving forward, the function of visual activism within the Black Lives Matter movement can be claimed as a beneficial tool as the visual impact of a traumatic image is not only sensed and internalised by the viewer—it is instantaneously shared, passed along, and broadcast online (Speltz, 2016). Photographies capability of capturing a crucial moment in time allows people in various points of the world too quickly visualise and absorb the information within the image. This demonstrates how the medium can be useful for activism as it can quickly spread awareness on a cause. The role of photography within activist movements has been used for a long period of time, as for every modern protest that changed the world, there were photographers on the ground capturing history as it unfolded (Artnet News, 2020). This vital role that photography plays in furthering a cause has been seen within the Black Lives Matter movement. In 2020, the Black Lives Matter movement went global due to the fatal death of George Floyd who was killed by Minneapolis police. This involved one of the officers pinning him to the ground and kept his knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck for at least eight minutes and 15 seconds (Hill, Tiefenthäler, Triebert and Wills, 2020), leading to his death. As the video highlighting the event was shared protests, marches and rallies took place to demand justice and systemic change to end police violence. Within these protests, there were also photographers who documented the event whilst also participating in the protest. The photograph featured within Figure 1 presents the scenes of one of the Black Lives Matter protests within New York City captured by photographer Stephen Lovekin. The photograph demonstrates just how big the movement was through the extensive number of signs and bodies of all ethnicities standing together to support the cause. This photograph is one example of how photographers have proved critical to documenting the movement in real-time as their photographs often shared with the public through social media, are a testament to the nationwide scope of the Movement (Katz, 2020). Photographs taken of the movement like Lovekin’s image can be shared and discussed through publications and technology, ensuring a conversation is created that provides awareness and visibility on the racial injustice that surrounds our society and supports the cause that is Black Lives Matter. Therefore, photographs documenting meetings, marches and demonstrations convey immediacy and inspire activism (Speltz, 2016). The visual activism that is created through these photographs has allowed the important historical actions of the Black Lives Matter movement to be preserved, ensuring that it continues to inspire and spread awareness on the critical changes needed.
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Chapter 2 - Public Display vs Gallery Space for Visual Activism
Part 1 - The use of Public Display
The way visual activism is displayed can determine how effective it will be at providing awareness on the issues it is representing. This is because the way it is displayed will establish how it catches the viewers' attention as well as how they choose to engage with the information being presented. Partaking in the practice of visual activism involves using two types of display options, these being either public display or the gallery space. As this conversation aims to discover how visual activism functions to provide visibility on intersectionality, the analysis on public display and the gallery space will reveal how each space performs to effectively spread awareness and how they present visual activism to inform the viewer on the intersection of multiple oppressions.
First, is the use of public display as a form of exhibiting visual activism. This mode of display heavily relies on the use of location choice for its engagement as it uses busy environments such as the city streets and billboards to captivate the audience's attention. This method of using public environments to present visual activism can become a form of street art, which is art created for the general public to not just see, but to interact, understand what they are seeing and have an emotional response (Tarkulich, 2018, p.30). The 1980s activist group Guerrilla Girls prove as an example of how visual activists can use public display to engage with the viewer and also how visual culture can be used to spread awareness on social issues.
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Fig 2, Guerrilla Girls, What’s new and happening at the Guggenheim for the discriminating art lover?, 1992
The Guerrilla Girls are a feminist activist group, their distinctive characteristics involve wearing gorilla masks in public and using facts, humour and outrageous visuals to expose gender and ethnic bias as well as corruption in politics, art, film, and pop culture (Guerrilla Girls, n.d.). The modes of engagement that the activist group incorporates in their work involve tactful visuals that demonstrate an intersectional feminism that fights discrimination and supports human rights for all people and all genders (Toptchi, 2020). The motivation towards their early work revolved around how the art world was dominated by white male artists and often excluded the works created by women and artists of colour. The discrimination placed onto the unrepresented was what attracted the Guerrilla Girls to use visual activism in order to expose the mistreatment being made. They have demonstrated their participation in exposing injustices through their Guerrilla Girls’ 1986 Report Card which displayed the number of women artists in New York gallery rosters, offering comments when and if there was improvement or deterioration (Lippard and Reilly, 2018, p.19), and their Guerrilla Girls’ “Dearest Art Collector” postcard, which reads, “it has come to our attention that your collection, like most, does not contain enough art by women. We know that you feel terrible about this and will rectify the situation immediately” (ibid, p. 220).
An example of how the activist group have used public display and visual activism to provide visibility on intersectionality is shown through the production of their Guggenheim protest. The protest which took place in 1992 formulated due to how the Guggenheim Museum was opening a branch in Soho that was rumoured to have no women or artist of colour featured within the exhibition. The Guerrilla Girls, aware of the discrimination taking place, chose to respond to the gallery’s actions. The image presented within Figure 2, reveals the two components created and used by the Guerrilla Girls for the protest to visually address and expose the discriminatory actions that were being made by the Guggenheim gallery. Firstly, there was the pink postcards which were created for a postcard-writing campaign, the group addressed the cards to the Guggenheim Museum and dumped thousands of the pink slips on the desk of Director Thomas Kren (Guerrilla Girls, 1992). Alongside the postcards, there was also paper bags created for the protest, which participants wore on their heads inspired by the old joke that a bag over a woman's head makes us all the same (ibid). The paper bags represent how the activist group has engaged with visual activism due to the large printed photograph of a guerrilla head, the groups signature symbol, along with bold text that informs the viewer on the many forms of discrimination that had taken place in the gallery. Alongside this, the paper bags demonstrate the groups' engagement with intersectionality through their targeted message stating how the gallery is conforming to racism, sexism, classism, ageism, eurocentrism, nepotism, elitism, and phallocentrism, exposing them of their involvement with multiple forms of discrimination and demonstrating how the group protests by “fighting discrimination with facts” (Lesso, 2020).
Fig 3, Guerrilla Girls, Guggenheim Protest with Women’s Action Coalition, 1992
Another essential point to the protest demonstrated in figure 3, is how public display was used for the Guggenheim protest to create awareness and change. This is shown within the photograph through the hundreds of citizens, all wearing the paper bags on their heads, marching in the streets of New York on the galleries opening night. The number of citizens who chose to participate in the protest and engage with the Guerrilla Girls visual activism provides proof that using public display can create awareness and realisation that encourages citizens to participate in making a change. The protest shows how the Guerrilla Girls have used visual activism to engage with social and political issues whilst also successfully providing awareness and bringing forth change on the multiple forms of discrimination that had taken place in the Guggenheim gallery. Moving forward, the Guerrilla Girls involvement with intersectionality within their activist work is further explained by one of the members of the group who identifies as Kathe Kollowitz. In a discussion that took place during an interview with i-D, Kollowitz stated how “The Guerrilla Girls have always believed in an intersectional feminism that fights for the rights of everyone” (Weinstock, 2016). This is proven through how the group has targeted museums, dealers, curators, critics and artists who they felt were actively responsible for, or complicit in, the exclusion of women and non-white artists from mainstream exhibitions and publications (Manchester, 2004). The Guerrilla Girls have proven that their visual activism provides visibility on intersectionality through how their practice always engages with methods that reveal the ways institutions are being discriminatory to women or artists of colour, exposing them through visuals and language to ensure that they will change their ways. Overall, the activist group and their Guggenheim protest have demonstrated the success in using public display for visual activism and also revealed how we need more activist groups like the Guerrilla Girls working with and within the system to effect change (Withers, 1988. p. 289).
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Part 2 - The use of Gallery Space
In contemporary visual practices, the use of the gallery space is an effective medium for exhibiting artwork. The viewers’ engagement with the visual culture presented on the gallery wall is an important attribute to how the context is perceived and read. This means, for visual activists their approach must have an engaging outcome within the gallery space for its cause and message to be effective and received by the viewer. Understanding some of the historical and contemporary debates around the gallery space will enable the discussion to discover how effective the gallery space is for visual activism as well as provide insight on whether it is a useful mode of display for perceiving an activist’s messages and discover whether the space supports the issues being addressed within the photograph.
Fig. 6, Zanele Muholi, Dalisu, New York, 2016
To discuss the possibilities of the gallery as an effective space for visual activism the discussion will look at the work of the photographer and visual activist Zanele Muholi. Muholi has dedicated her work to the practice of visual activism as for her it is a practice which is concerned primarily with reclaiming spaces of representation for those who have been historically invisibabilised in the name of race and sexuality by dominant and oppressive structures of power (Eckersley, 2020). For Muholi her engagement with the gallery space and visual activism has allowed her to spread visibility on intersectionality. This can be observed through her collection of self-portraits within the photographic series Somnyama Ngonyama (Zulu for Hail the Dark Lioness). Within Figure 6, the photograph named Dalisu, New York, involves masses of black wool string framing Muholi’s figure, consuming her entire body other than her face. The photograph symbolises a bad experience at a New York hotel in 2016 (Wang, 2017). Muholi made the photograph to represent the emotions she felt within the moment that she was being questioned by a hotel manager before being allowed to check into a room, which had already been booked and paid for (Hirsch-Abel, 2020, p.46). The pile of entangled string within the composition represents the emotions Muholi experienced within that encounter, stating within a 2018 interview with Aperture that she “felt entangled and confined, confused and angry” (Mussai, 2018). The photograph portrays awareness on the multiple forms of social injustice that Black women face and particularly represents the intersectionality of both race and sex discrimination that Muholi witnessed in that moment. Furthermore, there are significant attributes within the photograph shown in Figure 6 as well as the others among the photographic series.The first is the use of props which helps create the character and narrative within the photograph. Muholi uses ready-made objects and found materials which are transformed into culturally loaded props, merging the political with the aesthetic (New Art Exchange, 2018). Second, is the title name within each photograph created. Each title mentions the location at which the photo is taken, becoming a diary of both Muholi’s extensive traveling and of the many places where black bodies are still unwelcome (Wang, 2017). Thirdly, is Muholi’s use of eye contact. Presented in Figure 6, Muholi engages eye contact with the viewer as the work is meant to be confrontational. It confronts them with the multiple forms of discrimination that Muholi has faced as a Black woman and ensures that the viewer is paying attention to the issues Muholi is trying to address. Altogether, these attributes involve Muholi using her body and performance to confront the politics of race and representation, questioning the way the black body is shown and perceived (D'Aliesio, 2018).
Fig. 7, PESTS, We’re here why don’t you see us? & There are at least 11,009* artists of colour in New York. Why don’t you see us?, New York, 1980
Furthermore, the discussion surrounding Muholi’s photographs within the gallery space holds great significance for Black female photographers due to their lack of representation within the art world. The gallery space and art institutions have structurally favoured white male artists, leaving women and artists of colour excluded. This structural inequality is still a large issue, whilst it has improved slightly, it is important not to be seduced by what appears to be signs of equality - women and non-whites have never been, nor are they yet, treated on par with white men (Lippard and Reilly, 2018, p.20). A recent survey on the permanent collections of 18 prominent U.S. art museums found that the represented artists are 87% male and 85% white (NMWA, n.d.). Followed by another study, published in 2019, in PLOS One that found 85.4% of artists represented in U.S. art museums are white, and nearly 76.7% are white men. When it comes to race, Asian artists are the second most represented, but they only constitute 9%, followed by Latinx at 2.8%, and African Americans at 1.2% (Temblador, 2020). This study published only two years ago highlights how there are still institutions in place that are excluding the voice of artists of colour. Whilst some galleries and museums are learning from past mistakes and changing their ways to ensure a more inclusive space there are many fundamental structures that keep people of colour out of the art world that still remain in place. This is proven through how African Americans are absent from historical art collections in some of the world’s largest museums, galleries and major auctions (Weaver, 2020). The efforts to spread awareness on the unequal systems placed within the art world for artists of colour has been tackled since the 1980s when PESTS, an anonymous group of New York - based African, Asian, Latino, and Native American artists organised in 1986 to combat “art-world apartheid”. In 1987, the PESTS Newsletter published a roster of 62 top New York galleries whose stables were all or nearly all white (Berger, 1992, p. 147). Using visual activism, the art produced by PESTS was in the form of ephemera, flyers, posters and brochures in which they would highlight examples of racial discrimination. An example of their production is the flyer with the text ‘THERE ARE AT LEAST 11,009* ARTISTS OF COLOUR IN NEW YORK. WHY DON’T YOU SEE US?’ (Tate, n.d.) (Figure 7). PESTS demonstrates the injustice that was apparent in the gallery space and how the use of visual activism provided them with a voice to spread visibility on the artists of colour being excluded. Since 1986 the gallery space has chosen to evolve. This is why the work of Zanele Muholi and many other artists of colour presented within the gallery space is so significant as it proves that the institution that once kept artists of colour on the side-lines has started to listen and began to change their discriminative views.
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Comparing public display and the gallery space together, it has been made apparent that both involve a variety of different characteristics and modes of engagement. Both methods of display have engaged with visual activism differently, each presenting different effects and providing different relationships with the viewer. Firstly, the use of public display demonstrated that displaying visual activism among the streets within billboards, flyers, and posters can elicit a reaction due to how the visual work can interact with citizens and also have the ability to captivate people as part of their day-to-day experience (Tarkulich, 2018, p. 30). This was supported through the work of Guerrilla Girls as they demonstrated that using public display to present visual activism within the streets could create a big impact. It was also shown through how the activist group captivated the audience's attention by using facts, information, activist language, and the visual. This was shown through the work made by Guerrilla Girls as they demonstrated how public display can provide visibility on the discrimination inflicted on Black women, which they presented through how their “fighting discrimination with facts” (Lesso, 2020) in their visual protest to raise awareness on the cause. Secondly, the observation on the gallery space within this discussion have proven that it holds a lot of power. This is demonstrated by Richard Sandell who explains that “deciding which stories will be told - or not, and not least, defining which voices are worthy of being heard … speaks of a great deal of power” (Janes and Sandell, 2019, p. 428). We have seen this abundance of power that the gallery possesses through its historical background, where it inflicted privilege onto white male artists, ensuring that they were the most represented within the space, resulting in women and artists of colour to be silenced and excluded. Moving on to how it functions today, we can begin to see how the gallery space is starting to improve on how it uses its power as it chooses to represent more voices that can ensure awareness and visibility on social issues through visual activism. This has been shown through the works of Zanele Muholi. Having Muholi's activist work presented within the gallery space proves how it is using its power to provide visibility as well as support and promote the voices of artists who were once silenced. That aside, there have also been arguments presented stating that visual activism cannot be fully engaged with among a museum, gallery, or institution. This is explained by Nicolas Lampert who argues that museums and galleries “are not the primary site for activist art. Politically engaged art can and does exist in museums and galleries, but activist art is altogether different and is firmly located in movements and in the streets and communities that produce these movements” (Tarkulich, 2018, p.39). This presents a different perspective to the conversation as Lampert exclaims that visual activism does not belong within the gallery space and should only be displayed and engaged with through public display as it has a better connection to activist movements. In summary, both modes of display possess positive characteristics that support visual activism and elicit a reaction from the viewer. The two factors have shown that they able to spread awareness and ensure engagement through using the visual and the space together. However, although both are effective modes of display for visual activism, the one that has proven to engage with the viewer the most and has the most effective attributes for visual activism has been public display. This is because public display is able to present visual activism among city walls and billboards, interacting with citizens in their day-to-day life as they move among the streets. Whilst with the gallery space the viewer has to actively choose to visit the gallery in order to engage with the visual activism. As well as this, public display can also be seen as an important place of freedom of expression (Gerritsen, n.d.) and is easily accessible to anybody who wants to contribute, create or engage with visual activism.
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Chapter 3 - Photography and Activism
The discussion so far has revolved around photography’s role within visual activism. Throughout this analysis, the topic has been revolved around how photography as a medium has functioned within activism. It has provided support towards visual activism and supplied examples of how the practice initiates methods of awareness and visibility. However, it should be pointed out that without photography activism still functions as an effective practice through the use of protest and persuasion, such as speeches, slogans, banners, picketing, protest disrobings, vigils, singing, marches, and teach-ins (L. Anderson and G. Herr, 2007, p. 20). This leads me to pose a pair of important questions: Is photography able to achieve something that activism on its own cannot? Or does visual activism just limit activism to just the visual?
As we have established throughout this discussion visual activism uses visual culture to provide a way of seeing and understanding social, political, and economic issues present within the world. The term presents a newly developing way of thinking through the relationship between visual culture, visual practices, and questions of activism and politics (Eckersley, 2020). However, among activism as a practice the use of visual culture can be viewed as problematic due to its focus being solely around the visual and not on other components that are largely a part of the practice. In the text Between Rebel Creativity and Reification: For and Against Visual Activism, Labofii argues that the label visual activism does not sit comfortably because, echoing Demos, “change for us is created by a multiplicity of senses which touch our dreams and desires, not just the eye” (Demos, 2016). Importantly, this suggests that the understanding of activism as a practice and the motivation for change isn’t created by just the visual but by a series of attributes such as sound, touch, performance, and other forms of movement, which we will discuss in further detail later on. Similarly, it has been argued that we are in danger of limiting our historical understanding of activism when we reduce the complexity of an entire movement to an iconic visual image (Jackson, 2016), which does support the fact that photography may be limiting activism to just the visual. In this case, it can be understood that the visual, as much as it can be understood as an important part of activism, isn’t the only part. In comparison, there are claims that support visual activism, typically pointing to its ability to achieve something that activism on its own cannot. Photography has long been regarded for its power to make visible and to document the unseen and the unknown aspects of our world (Wilkinson, 2015). In her analysis on photography, Liz Wells states that “photography permeates all aspects of our life, acting as a principal source and repository of information about our world of experience” (Wells, 2015, p.11): this speaks directly to the idea that photography can provide us with information to enable an understanding on the things happening within our world. Applying this within activism means that the visual is able to provide something that activism on its own cannot, a way of seeing. Although activists work behind the scenes, oftentimes they are not equipped with the tools to spread awareness through visual means. Photographers provide that visual means to spread information about an issue in an easily digestible way (Ferdous, 2014, p. 24-25). This means, that through using the visual information is able to be transmitted to the viewer quickly and easily and therefore spreads awareness on the issues faster than any other element within activism. In addition, photographies function within activism also offers many possibilities for people, including marginalised people, to engage with and expand the limits of democratic representation and participation (Love and Mattern, 2013, p. 30). This has been demonstrated through the photographers Zanele Muholi, Lorna Simpson, and activist group PESTS as they were able to use the visual to express the discrimination and marginalisation that artists of colour experience.
Although photography is a powerful tool, when referring back to what was stated in Labofii’s text it is apparent that using photography can limit activism to just the visual as it undermines the other elements that are a part of the practice. This is demonstrated by how visual activism does not embody the other sensory attributes which are provided among an activist movement such as speech, listening to the persuasion within one’s voice, touch, sound, and the emotional sensation and exhilaration of being surrounded by physical bodies fighting the same cause. This can be applied to the Black Lives Matter movement, as whilst the visual enabled the cause to be understood and visualised among the world, it was also influenced through the use of sensory attributes such as protest, persuasion, speech, marches, and physical action that supported the movements cause to be listened and responded too. Furthermore, the different engagement techniques that activism possesses supports how the practice successfully functions without the using the visual; these are identified as:
Individualistic activism, compromises individual acts such as donating money to an organisation, buying or boycotting goods for political reasons, signing a petition, or voting. The other two types are contact activism, which involves contacting someone in authority, and collective activism, which entails participating in a group effort such as a demonstration (Martin, Hanson, Fontaine, 2007, p. 4).
This provides insight on the other important features within activism that can spread awareness and create change, features in which the visual does not engage with. The selection of actions described are necessary for creating change and cannot be achieved solely on just using the visual due to the other sensory attributes included. The distinctions between visual activism and activism that have been described provide insight into how the two function as well as how the visual can affect activism as a practice positively and negatively. Photography has proven that it can support activism as it allows the viewer to visualise what needs to be changed. Alongside this, whilst visual activism doesn’t engage with all attributes that are apart of activism it has been claimed that while marches, rallies and protests are important, they won’t have lasting impact unless the issues resonate with people (Duncombe and Lambert, 2018). Therefore, whilst photography may not engage with all of the characteristics that are apart of activism it is the most efficient tool for creating an effect on the viewer and has proven to be a great ‘activist’ tool for people wanting to expose social injustices (Bogre, 2012). In conclusion, due to how photography is able to make a viewer visualise the changes needed to be put into action anywhere in the world, and how it is able to elicit a quick reaction proves that photography is able to achieve visibility and awareness making it an efficient tool for activism. As described, ’Activism’, the Oxford Dictionary explains, is ‘the policy or action of using vigorous campaigning to bring about political or social change’ (Janes and Sandell, 2019, p. 428), and visual activism has proved itself to achieve this in immense ways.
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Conclusion
To conclude, analysing activisms involvement with photography has revealed that the medium is beneficial to the practice as it is recognised by photographers and social activist as a great ‘activist’ tool for people who wanted to expose social injustice (Bogre, 2012). Photography has proven to function successfully within activism through how it can visually capture and critique events within our world, and has the power to shine an uncompromising light on crucial issues by transcending borders religion, race, and social class and provoke those around the world to step up and act (Ferdous, 2014, p.25). We have seen how photography can achieve this through the visual examples included among this discussion made by visual activists. Each example illustrated how activism and photography successfully function together to create awareness on social injustices through the way they engaged with overlapping social issues regarding race, gender and class and successfully used visual activism to provide awareness and visibility on this process which is defined as intersectionality. This therefore proves that the way visual activism functions can successfully spread awareness on social injustices and provide visibility on intersectionality through how it uses photography as a medium and uses the visual to critique and reflect on what needs to be changed within
our world.
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The discovery to finding how photography benefited visual activism was analysed through the visual work created by the Guerrilla Girls and Zanele Muholi. Each visual activist used photography to create conversations around social injustices and provide awareness on how social categorisations such as race, class and gender overlap and creates multiple oppressions that are experienced at once. Visual activisms functionality was shown to be effective through Muholi as she illustrated how it is a practice which allowed her to represent those who have been invisibilized in the name of race and sexually by dominant and oppressive structures of power (Eckersley, 2020). Her work evaluated how black women can experience discrimination in a number of ways and how this creates neglect, representing the overlap of her own experience with racial and gendered discrimination. The evaluation on Muholi's photographs shows how intersectionality works and encompasses how Black women experience not only both racism and sexism but also racism that is gendered and sexism that is racialized (Eric-Udorie, 2018).
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After evaluating how visual activism has been applied into these photographers work and discovering how it has effectively allowed them to provide awareness on social issues it therefore proves that visual activisms functionality, combining visual culture and activism together, does effectively ensure awareness on social injustices and provide visibility for intersectionality. The use of photography within visual activism has proven to be a successful medium for activism as it is seen as a democratising and emancipatory form of visual representation, capable of raising awareness and helping to fight social, economic, and political injustice (Love and Mattern, 2013, p. 32). The visual examples provided throughout the discussion have been included to inform the viewer on how intersectionality functions and how it functions within people lives. The benefits of discussing intersectionality are that it informs the viewer that race, gender, and class don’t function on their own as single-issue frameworks but instead intersect and overlap as multiple forms of discrimination working at once therefore creating a multiple-issue framework. The discussion on the function of visual activism was to discover if the practice could effectively inform the viewer on this information and provide awareness on the fact that if we continue to apply a single-issue framework for discrimination the goal of ending racism and patriarchy will be unachievable. Additionally, this critical analysis on visual activism reveals that if social movements want to be representative, they must use intersectionality to advocate for their most marginalised members and to critique and dismantle “social structures [that] interact to create particular injustice and problems” (Tungohan, 2015). Overall, this analysis on visual activism has revealed that the practice is able to successfully inform the viewer on social injustices and create awareness which will inflict change through how it uses the visual culture and activist qualities together.
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