Feminist or Womanist (The Remix)

posted by Khi Baldwin

limchoy lee’s bio says that she is currently interested in “recoding the symbols used in shaping attitudes towards women of color in the media”. She goes on to say that she is “most interested in complex social situations and the transparency of the lines separating one point of view from the other.” In order to accomplish this, much of lee’s approach in her work has been to use opposing images - making the viewer think about the contradiction; and in turn question both perspectives.

Take for instance her video “Feminist or Womanist”. In this video she takes strip club and music video footage and chops it up with Staceyann Chin saying: “Am I a Feminist or a Womanist?” from her poem of the same title.  The viewer is forced to think about Chin’s poem while looking at these hyper-sexualized images of Black women in the media. To me, Chin’s poem is about having to choose between one thing or another; to fit into a box - Girl or boy, Buddist or Christian, Straight or gay, etc. She says:

“The truth is I’m afraid to draw your black lines around me, I’m not always pale in the middle, I come in too many flavors for one fucking spoon. I am never one thing or the other.  At night I am everything I fear, tears and sorrows, black windows and muffled screams. In the morning, I am all I ever want to be: rain and laughter, bare footprints and invisible seams, always without breath or definition. I claim every single dawn, for yesterday is simply what I was, and tomorrow even that will be gone."

Feminist or Womanist by limchoy lee on Vimeo.

Feminist or Womanist by Staceyann Chin

So, are these women only what they seem here? Or is there a middle ground between how the world only sees Black women as passive mother figures or the video vixen in the skin-tight dress? And what about those women that identify on the masculine end of the spectrum? Isn’t there more complexity than just being able to fit into one box or the other? lee asks these questions and more by simply juxtaposing the two videos. 

Or should I say re-mixing them? Because what I also find extremely interesting about lee’s work here is how familiar the medium becomes because of DJs and the culture of remixing, sampling, etc. – you almost start boppin’ your head! The whole idea of remixing something is to take the best parts from different sources and to use them to create your own narrative. I think she does just that, while drawing you into the subject matter with the familiarity of the medium. 

Check out the rest of limchoy lee’s work on her website: limchoylee.com / limchoylee.tumblr.com – and look out for future projects and installations from her.   

Khi Baldwin, queer artist transboi obsessed with art (in it's various forms) and it's intersection with queer culture - specifically when it involves people of color. Currently in Boston working in footwear design, Khi is the creator of the theGAQ.com - a blog that seeks to blend all of these interests, while acting as a visual diary and offering cultural commentary. Khi’s preferred pronouns are he/him/his.

Comments

[crossfire]

just to clarify, the name of the poem is 'crossfire.'