Document an Object

My grandmother grew up in a religious family. Two of her brothers and her sister came out in the 1960s. My grandmother has always tried to educate me as a Christian. What I've learned from her is that religion is about love. You can interpret every story, every text in your own way. In a way that everyone can be accepted, as long as you look with open eyes. With your view, a loving view, anything is possible.

Portret Hans van Bekkum, '80ies

Document something that is already los

- Beige
- Tulle
- Huge
- Floral
- Romantic
- Fairytale

I got this skirt when I was 6 years old. I used it for everything, dress-party, to parade around the house and sometimes even for school. The skirt gave me so much confidence and pride. It gave me a feeling I could rule the world and do anything I wanted to do. This confident feeling is where I go back to when I actually do not feel so confident. But also the free feeling I got while making pirouettes is something I cherish and love to look back on.

Uzma Rizvi's quotes

"A simple example might be to consider my own childhood: as a person of South Asian heritage, I was often confounded while dealing with crayons that did not have any color to represent my skin tone. I was told by teachers to color in bodies as ‘peach’ because that was the norm in the 1970s, in the United States. But my body was not peach.

The disjuncture, cognitive dissonance, and alienation between what I experienced as body and what I represented was unaccounted for: the tools (i.e. crayons) and the representation could not align unless I let go of wanting to see myself represented in that image. I had to make myself into something I was not, and it very quickly became clear to me that I was not the ‘norm’ in the world of crayons." p87

"That realization is a small gesture that has huge implications for the ways in which the material culture of schools can be changed. A key tenet of decolonization has to also include a sense of intersectionality. So another clear example might be the heteronormativity of public bathroom spaces, particularly in schools. If the architecture of our early childhood spaces structurally reiterates gender binaries, we will never grow up to really be comfortable in non-gendered bathrooms because our comfort is first introduced and developed at a young age. Prior to those moments, most children do not think very much about who is around them when they perform any biological act. If we change the gender markings of early education bathrooms, we have changed the embedded social meaning of everyday practice in the future." p89

"If, due to your body experience, you have never had to question how the world looks at your race/class/ethnicity/ gender/body, or if that has never impacted the way the world identifies your research or work, you should know that that is a privileged experience. And that privilege or lack thereof, informs you and your praxis." p86

"Often we feel trapped in one system, and we feel the system is so much larger than we are; but we are the ones who are keeping that system going. So once you recognize the inequity, and trace how your own body is being disciplined and kept in a certain place, you can begin to think through how you might design intervention, as a creator of cultural material. "p90

I remember when we were coloring in kindergarten, we always had the color, "skin color." A light beige color. A friend of mine who comes from Morocco always wanted to use brown colors to draw himself. He was not a “skin-color pencil color" Not only did he think so himself, this was also quickly made clear to him by all the children in class. We soon tried to mix the colors together to recreate our real skin tone. But, of course this never became as beautiful and smooth as the colored pencil.
I can imagine that you like to draw yourself as you really are. But if you only have a limited choice from a number of colors, I understand that you adapt to it as a child, especially if your teacher says that that is the norm. You want to belong to that. Being within the norm just didn't mean being yourself. Not being able to show who you really are. From a very young age already in an unconscious way, of the teacher, of the children and perhaps that is extra bad. Because of the innocence of the white people.

I already had to choose gender when going to the toilet in kindergarten. We even had to grab a necklace, pink or blue. To indicate which toilet was occupied. So you had to make the decision at the door, in the classroom. You could not choose the color you liked the most, but the color that “belongs” to your gender. Because when you picked the wrong one, the toilet system was no longer correct, and you were also looked at by the rest of the class because you’ve went to the “wrong ”toilet. Since group four, which was on a different floor, we had a toilet per class, boys and girls mixed. You didn’t have a choice anymore between boys or girls, but everyone was so used to a separate toilet that we really thought in a different way. Me and my friends thought it was gross. We had evolve such a standard image that we felt that boys and girls should be separated and that this should be clearly indicated. The stupid thing is that I still have to get used to go to a no gender toilet, because it is in my mind that men and women go to the toilet separately.

This is why I study fashion, fashion is an approachable medium for everyone. Everyone wears clothes and buys them for a reason, to join a group. One does that with specific brands, the other one with vintage or “unbranded” clothing. But behind every piece of clothing there is a brand and a message. The message that clothing tells is not as loud as, for example, a piece of text does, so it is open for everyone. You can tell a story, give a message to a lot of people. And because fashion is a creative expression, you can say a lot. By teaching people, in a way that suits them, just as the brand suits them, people can change and the system can also slowly change.

As long as I can remember injustice is something I can not stand. I like to stand up for people who are in the minority or who are treated unfairly. I soon realised that it was almost never myself. I could always get away with anything. Since I started watching many documentaries myself, and started to evolve in what I find important in life, in a society, in the world, I have tried to teach myself a lot about the privileges that I have. What I can do more easily as a white blonde girl than someone who does not have these privileges. In the four or five years that I evolve and deepen myself, I can't imagine discrimination because I don't experience it myself. All I can do is be aware of it, tell and pass it on to other privileged people. To try to make people aware of discrimination so that they can’t be or act innocent and unknowing . I also try to adjust after learning things. When I was 11 I dressed up as a black Pete for the toddlers at school, along with the rest of the eighth grade. With the knowledge I have learned, my opinion has changed and I am against Sinterklaas. It is not hypocrite to change your opinion.

Group: Stereotypes Exclusion

What touches me, what I respond to:

Not being valued as an individual, generalised people. Because of the stereotype not able to show who you are, as a human. No understanding and because of that...

No connection between people.

What touches me, what I respond to:

Because of the stereotype not being able to show who you are, as a human. As an individual. Fear to be yourself, fear to distinctive. Fear to be honest.

Who am i as an individu?, I wanna be excluded, not be part of the stereotype

Reflection

This was a week full of personal stories. It really helped to find out why I'm doing this minor, where I want to talk about. The feeling of not being heard, not being valued as an individual or community is what came out of the group work. Not being included in the general framework, in other words; exclusion.

Exclusion and stereotypes are the starting points for our research.

I feel motivated again! This week I did all the homework and I like that we start working in groups.