www.sofiamintre.de

White_Gaps

White_Gaps 2019

Whiteness as a construction of power, its' invisibility and not-seen norm is a main part of today's racist actions, imagery and thinking. Whiteness as a perspective needs to be seen and anaylized. With my work White_Gaps I want to establish a connection between visual habits of sight and racist thinking. The main question is how to combine the role of photography today and its' history with the Critical Whiteness and Postcolonial Studies. I'm searching for a visual language to discuss racism in Germany without hurting people who experience it. At the same time I try to define my own white identity as a photographer and my responsibilities trough this work. I called the work White_Gaps because the gaps, the holes, the rupture, the not-seeing, not-hearing, not-knowing about black history and present in Germany needs to be illuminated. Within our society, to make thinks visible means to make things true. Since only what you can see is taken to be true and real. White_ Gaps tries, through the combination of images with texts to fill the gaps and wants to give the opportunity to re_read the pictures again through a postcolonial filter. How photography was once used to support a racial system and spread myths of »the Other« might mean that photography has the power of being the medium that can re_write them too. White_Gaps is an incomplete work. It doesn't have a beginning or an end. It is a collection of knowledge which is fluid and images which can be dicussed. To understand my own view as only one out of many I used my own pictures, as well as collages and pictures which I found. In the softcoverbook including the theoretical work you can find the image_titles through a reference system. The theoretical work shall give the images a deeper context in the field of Postcolonial Studies.

$His_Story »The sad part of it is that they do not take in consideration our history.(...) I mean, we were sold by white slavers to white people... It is, of course, insulting when they ask ›But where in Africa (are you from)?‹ (...) Neither the white women nor Kathleen know where Kathleen‘s ancestors came from, but they do not know for different reasons. While the white women do not know because they do not have to know (...) Kathleen does not know, not because she does not care, but because she was denied access to her history. There was a fracture, a rupture, that deliberately separeted her from parts of her history.« Text: Grada Kilomba: Plantation Memories, Episodes of Everyday Racism, Unrast-Verlag, 2. Auflage, April 2010, S. 110-111 Bild: Vgl. https://phys.org/news/2018-05-cotton-harvest-surges-ivory-coast.html$

Africa_Best_Swimmer

Adamski Dj Smilyman – an entertainer, musician and artist from Hamburg – sows himself together outfits for various events. He only uses 2-nd-hand-clothing to design them. »I don‘t want to be political with my designs, they are just funny. All I want is to make the people laugh.«

Text: Adamski Dj Smilyman (Adam
Hinnen) im Interview mit Sofia Mintre, 2018
Bild: Sofia Mintre