Pantone

In her project "Humanae", Brazilian photographer Angélica Dass creates a catalogue of skin tones by matching 11x11 pixel swatches from posing volunteers' faces witch Pantone colours. The project has no limits as every volunteer is welcome to participate no matter which age, gender, ethnicity, religion, or social class. And there is no time limit either, no deadline by which the project has to be finished (via).



Here is a part of the feature shot interview with the photographer (via):

What was your inspiration for using Pantone colors to represent humans? 
“If what I wanted was to destroy the concepts of colors associated with race, such as red, yellow, white and black, it would not be logical to use a color scale that works with percentages of these colors. That’s why I chose not to use CMYK or RGB. Pantone works on a neutral scale, where a color has no more importance than another. It’s a very identifiable scale for those in the world of design, but also easily understood by anyone. It provides a way to look objectively at the ‘human object.'”



How do you go about finding subjects for your work and what are the criteria you are looking for? 
“There is no selection criteria. I make public announcements through social networks. To ensure diversity in the project, I work at spaces that are not only in the art world, too. The 2000 images in the project have been made in galleries and art fairs, but also in urban favelas, in NGOs, at the headquarters of UNESCO, and in cooperatives that work with the homeless.
“Not only are there a mix of faces and colors, but a mix of social classes, religions, sexual orientations, political elections, economic status—together in Humanae we cannot be confined to these codes. So far I have taken portraits in seven cities: Madrid, Barcelona, Winterthur, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Paris, and Chicago. My minimum goal is to make portraits on all the five continents.”



By identifying your subjects by Pantone color rather than ethnicity/color of origin/name/occupation, etc., what commentary do you hope to make about their identities and the relationship between them? 
“It is a kind of game for subverting our codes. The ultimate goal is to provoke discussion about ethnic identity, creating images that lead us to identify each other independent from factors such as nationality, origin, economic status, age, or aesthetic standards. The most important thing for me is the dialogue Humanae has generated outside of the existing conversation. For example, Humanae has been used in educational textbooks by teachers who use it as a tool to talk about equality, appropriation for new artists who are interested in the physiognomic variety in the project, or scientists who use it to illustrate their research.”



"A photographic taxonomy of these proportions has been rarely undertaken; those who preceded Angélica Dass were characters of the 19th century that, for various reasons - legal, medical, administrative, or anthropological - used photographs to establish different types of social control of the power. The best-known is that of the portraits of identity, initiated by Alphonse Bertillon and now used universally. However, this taxonomy close to Borges´ world, adopts the format of the PANTONE ® guides, which gives the collection a degree of hierarchical horizontality that dilutes the false preeminence of some races over others based on skin color or social condition."
Alejandro Castellote



photographs via and via and via and via and via and via and via and via and via and via and via and via and via and via and via and via and via and via

Hundertdreiundvierzig Zentimeter

Hundertdreiundvierzig Zentimeter, one hundred and forty-three centimetres, is the BA-thesis of German photographer Sabine Lewandowski (via), one of the Sony World Photography Awards finalists. The photographic series documents her close relationship to her younger sister Marina, 143 cm tall and born with Down syndrome (via).



"The photo series 'One Hundred and Forty Centimetres' raises questions about our relationship with the stigma of 'impairment' and the technical possibilities to determine the value of a life before birth. The series addresses social issues everybody finds difficult to answer: how do we deal with strangeness and unfamiliarity within the frame of what society calls 'normal'."
Sabine Lewandowski 



In her exhibition, Lewandowski combines the photographs of her sister with statements against people with Down syndrome. Quotes are, for instance: "I hate people with trisomy 21. They all look the same and are not able to survive." (via)



Lewandowski about living with her sister Marina: "Marina and her way of seeing things enrich my life. Just like any other person she has good days and bad days. (...) She keeps reminding me of what the real values in life are." (via)




According to a study of four time periods, the average height of adult women with Down syndrome used to be 143 cm and increased in the past years (Lahtinen et al., 2007).



- photographs via
- Lahtinen, U., Rintala, P. & Malin, A. (2007). Physical Perforamce of Individuals With Intellectual Disability: A 30-Year Follow-Up. Adapted Physical Activity Quarterly, 24, 125-143.

Post No. 250. Or: Your Comments Are Beautiful

Posting number 250. Time to thank you again for passing by and for your beautiful comments ... particularly Derek, Karen, Tim, Abbie, Macy, Sam, Wim, Frans, Kenneth, Erin, and Noah. Thank you so much, danke, grazie mille.



photograph taken in (beautiful) Milan by Paperwalker (2015)

Clear as Black

“By looking at me you will not know what I am. I am white, but I am black. Slowly the personal side of this story kept gnawing at me more and more, and before I knew it this project was totally about me. Through this series, I discovered who I am genetically,”
Adriana Monsalve



Worldwide, Puerto Rico has the highest prevalence of albinism and Hermansky-Pudlak Syndrome (a type of albinism with a bleeding tendency and lung disease that has also been studied most frequently among Puerto Ricans, observed in five of every six albinos in Puerto Rico). Not all people diagnosed with albinism show the "typical" and distinguishing traits such as light hair, skin and eyes.



“I came up with ‘Clear As Black’ because I felt it represented exactly what it was that I had been seeing for three months in Puerto Rico: white people that are black, and black people that are white and all the visual representations of that. In the same way, ‘Clear As Black,’ is telling about me.”
Adriana Monsalve



With her series "Clear As Black", Adriana Monsalve confronts her own "story of being classified based on looks" and aims to break away "from the narrative of seeing persons with albinism as 'other'".



“I wanted to highlighted (sic.) the fact that they are people before they are ‘albinos.’ They are people with a condition called albinism and they live interesting lives just like you and me, full of layers and puberty, and racism and prejudice and romance and academic achievements and religious views and break-ups and lust an family drama and everything that makes them a whole person.”
Adriana Monsalve



“I’ve always found the rule in photography about how you should not mix color photos with black and whites in a series to be silly. My story has so much to do with skin color and lack [thereof], so I am going at against that rule for my benefit and the benefit of the story.”
Adriana Monsalve



“That’s what this series is about: changing what the word ‘albino’ means, and ultimately taking it out of our lexicon. I am showing a broader more expansive narrative of what people with albinism look like.”
Adriana Monsalve



- photographs and information via
- Witkop et al., (1990). Albinism and Hermansky-Pudlak syndrome in Puerto Rico. Boletín de la Asociación Medica de Puerto Rico, 82(8), 333-339

"And We Shall Overcome." From Selma to Montgomery.

The "right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." 

15th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified on 3 February 1870



"The Fifteenth Amendment does not confer the right of suffrage upon any one. It prevents the States, or the United States, however, from giving preference, in this particular, to one citizen of the United States over another on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Before its adoption, this could be done. It was as much within the power of a State to exclude citizens of the United States from voting on account of race, &c., as it was on account of age, property, or education. Now it is not. If citizens of one race having certain qualifications are permitted by law to vote, those of another having the same qualifications must be. Previous to this amendment, there was no constitutional guaranty against this discrimination: now there is. It follows that the amendment has invested the citizens of the United States with a new constitutional right which is within the protecting power of Congress. That right is exemption from discrimination in the exercise of the elective franchise on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

The Court, 1876



The Fifteenth Amendment was ratified in 1870 (with a clear limitation: the Court had held that the judiciary did not have the power to force states to register minorities to vote, via). Black US-Americans and other minorities, however, had to fight almost another 100 years for their right to vote which was officially gained with the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (via). Voting started with the registration process which again started with an application form that was four pages long. Registering in the courthouse, which was open only every other Monday for a few hours, meant taking a day off. Taking a day off meant asking the employer for permission. And if white employers gave black employees permission to take a day off to register they were driven out of business (via). In 1963, for instance, 32 black school teachers applied to register as voters. All of them were immediately fired by the all-white school board (via). The few hours the registration office was open, the board arrived late and took long lunches (via).




In addition, tactics such as physical intimidation, i.e., violence organised by the Ku Klux Klan, poll taxes, the grandfather's clause and literacy tests kept voting "a white thing". The tax had to be paid in order to vote while the grandfather's clause allowed adult men "whose father or grandfather had voted in a specific year prior to the abolition of slavery to vote without paying the tax" (via). In other words, those whose ancestors had been allowed to vote before the Civil War had the right to vote - practically no black person. In fact, the grandfather's clause was a very effective tool to prevent poor and illiterate black US-Americans from voting without denying poor and illiterate white US-Americans the right to vote (via). Many counties had a "voucher system" which meant that black persons needed a registered voter who vouched under oath that they met the qualifications. White persons did not dare vouch for black persons and black persons did not have the possibility (via). At the time protesters were marching through Lowndes County during the Selma to Montgomery Movement in March 1965, 81% of the county's population was black, 19% was white. Not a single black person was registered to vote at that time (via).



Between August 1964 and July 1965 there were about 100 different so-called literacy tests in order to make sure that applicants could not study for them (via). Last year, Harvard students took the 1964 Louisiana Literacy Test (30 questions in 10 minutes) black voters had to pass before being allowed to vote. Not one of the "bright Ivy League minds" passed the test. According to their tutor Miller, "Louisiana’s literacy test was designed to be failed. Just like all the other literacy tests issued in the South at the time, this test was not about testing literacy at all. It was a legitimate sounding, but devious measure that the State of Louisiana used to disenfranchise people that had the wrong skin tone or belonged to the wrong social class."  The test was designed in a manner that every question could be interpreted as wrong (via).

- Here is the Louisiana Literacy Test: link
- Here is the test used by voting rights pioneer Rufus A. Lewis: link



On 7 March 1965, the day that made history as "Bloody Sunday", about 600 protesters gathered in the little town of Selma, Alabama, to march 87 km / 54 miles to the state capital in Montgomery. The County Sheriff had ordered all white males in Dallas County over the age of 21 to report to the courthouse to be deputised. The protest "went according to the plan until the marchers crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge (...) where they found a wall of state troopers and county posse waiting for them on the other side" (via). Edmund Pettus Bridge has, by the way, become a symbol, "a landmark that holds so much significance for the civil rights movement" that civil rights activists believe it is time to change the name of the bridge into "Freedom Bridge" or "Bridge to Hope" and therefore started a petition which is, by the way, not far away from its 150.000 signature goal. The reason why is that Edmund Pettus was a Grand Dragon of Alabama's Ku Klux Klan (via).
Update (March 2017): 189.490 persons signed the petition on change.org, the bridge has kept its name (via).


Photograph: Singing "We Shall Overcome" in front of Brown Chapel in Selma (James H. Barker/Steven Kasher Gallery, via)

On 9 March, Martin Luther King, Jr. led a second march to Edmund Pettus Bridge, the place where the first one had ended with police and troopers brutality (dogs, fire hoses, bullwhips, tear gas, batons, and rubber tubing wrapped in barbed wire) (via). This second march is also referred to as "Turnaround Tuesday" because the marchers turned back after crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
After a nationwide call for supporters, on 21 March, the third and final march started with about 8000 people assembling at Brown Chapel (via). Protesters marched through chilling rain and camped overnight. On 24 March, a "Stars for Freedom" rally was held, with Harry Belafonte, Sammy Davis, Jr., Joan Baez, Tony Bennett, Nina Simone, Frankie Laine, Odetta and Pete Seeger, Johnny Mathis, Anthony Perkins, Mike Nichols, Elaine May, Shelley Winters, Ruby Dee, Nipsey Russell, George Kirby, and Peter, Paul and Mary (via and via). Among the ones who had completed the entire walk and helped other volunteers to erect and break down the tents for camping were Pernell Elvin Roberts (Bonanza) and Gary Merrill (All About Eve) (via). The march ended five days later at the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery with a petition for Governor Wallace. More than 25.000 people were there (via).




"Let us march on ballot boxes until race-baiters disappear from the political arena. Let us march on ballot boxes until the salient misdeeds of bloodthirsty mobs will be transformed into the calculated deeds of orderly citizens. Let us march until the Wallaces of our nation tremble away in silence."
Martin Luther King



There had been a great many attempts to gain voting rights before the Selma Voting Rights Movement. Many lost their lives, many were arrested.
The Selma to Montgomery Marches led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. on 6 August. This time, to really enforce the voting rights of minorities.

"Even if we pass this bill, the battle will not be over. What happened in Selma is part of a far larger movement which reaches into every section and state of America. It is the effort of American Negroes to secure for themselves the full blessings of American life. Their cause must be our cause, too, because it is not just Negroes but really it is all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome." President Lyndon Baines Johnson, speech in front of Congress

::: Selma to Montgomery March, film (17 minutes) by Stefan Sharff: WATCH



- photographs: first two ones by James Karales (1930-2002) via and via and Joan Baez with line of state police by Stephen Somerstein via and "Folk singers performing in front of 25,000 Selma to Montgomery civil rights marchers in front of the Alabama State House. Harry Belafonte, Leon Bibb, Joan Baez and Oscar Brand. On March 25, 1965 in Montgomery, Alabama. (descr. via)" via and "The actor and civil rights ativist Harry Belafonte smiles broadly while marching with National Urban League director Whitney Young (1921 - 1971) and NAACP executive secretary Roy Wilkins (1901 - 1981), from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery, Alabama, March 1965. The actress Ina Balin is partly visible over Young's right shoulder (descr. via)" via and "Artist sketching Selma to Montgomery civil rights marchers at City of St. Jude school grounds. On March 25, 1965 in Montgomery, Alabama." via and "Martin Luther King with others via and via and Martin Luther King from the rear speaking in front of 25.000 civil rights marchers at the conclusion of the Selma to Montgomery march in front of Alabama state capital building on 25 March 1965 in Montgomery" by Stephen Somerstein via and "Demonstrators, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., stream over an Alabama River bridge at the city limits of Selma, Ala., on March 10, 1965, during a voter rights march (descr. via)" via and "Marchers cross the Alabama River on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma on March 21, 1965" via and Bloody Sunday via and of police line by Flip Schulke via; all copyrights by their respective owners
- Alabama Voter Literacy Test, Parts B and C: link

The -ism Series (20): Cultural Monism

Cultural monism is a "stance or viewpoint postulating that multiculturalism functions against social conformity and that minorities should thus be prompted to align with the superior culture" (via).



In general, two approaches to incorporating migrants are differentiated: a) multiculturalism or cultural pluralism and b) cultural uniformity, cultural assimilation or cultural monism.



Multicultural countries recognise cultural differences and sometimes promote them. Migrants are incorporated based on the concept of "jus soli", a civic-territorial conception of citizenship. Examples are Great Britain and the Netherlands where "collective claim makings by immigrants tend to be more focused on integration in the host country and on the extension of their collective rights." (Eggert & Pilati, 2007).



Assimilationist countries, such as France, Germany, Japan and Switzerland, however, ask immigrants to assimilate to the majority culture. Their approach to incorporating migrants is based on "jus sanguinis", an ethnic conception of citizenship. Here, "collective claim makings by migrants tend to focus on conditions of entry and stay and to be oriented toward their homeland." (Eggert & Pilati, 2007). Japan is an example for the principle of "jus sanguinis" (law of the blood, parentage, nationality, descent) since whether one has "Japanese blood" or not is a criterion for entitlement for privileges (Suzuki, 2009). Countries with "a more exclusive way of conceiving citizenship" rather exclude migrants from the majority community and make migrants develop less trust in the host country (Eggert & Pilati, 2007). Foreigners have difficulties to become citizens and their children born in the "new" home country do not automatically have the right to citizenship (Castles, 1995). Immigrants tend to be suppressed and to hide their ethnic origin. They cannot develop a "hyphenated identity" such as, for instance, "Korean-Japanese" in Japan as there is the binary approach of "Japanese or Alien" (Suzuki, 2009).



The photographs were taken by Howard Grey at Waterloo Station in June 1962. They document the "arrival of the last West Indian immigrants before the Commonwealth Immigrants Act of 1962 came into force". The "historic Windrush negatives" were found years after being taken.



Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962
1.1 Part I of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962 provided that, with effect from 1 July 1962, citizens of Commonwealth countries, with certain exceptions, became subject to immigration control. Under s.12, which came into force on 31 May 1962, the period of ordinary residence prescribed for registration under s.6(1) of the BNA 1948 or s.3(2) of the BNA 1958 was increased from 1 to 5 years, and persons recommended for deportation lost their entitlement to registration under s.6(1) of the BNA 1948. (via)



- Castles, S. (1995) Multicultural Citizenship. Parliamentery Research Service, Research Paper, no. 16, via
- Eggert, N. & Pilati, K. (2007) Religious cleavages, organizations and the political participation of immigrants in Milan and Zurich. ECPR General Conference, Pisa, 6-8 September 2007
- Suzuki, K. (2009) Divided Fates: The State, Race, and Adaptation of Korean Immigrants in Japan and the United States. Paper no. 37
- photographs by Howard Grey (1962): more; via and via and via and via and via and via and via and via and via and via