TRIPT magazines main aim is to use our platform to raise awareness on serious topics such as the black lives matter movement but we wanted to do it in a way that was more of a celebration of life and all humanity, using bright bold colour’s and graphics. In our first section of the magazine we focus solely on the Black Lives Matter topic and in this section we interviewed a popular Instagram account called ‘The Black Project’. This account is ran by Brianna O’Reilly and it focuses on all aspects of black life and being a successful activists as well as an ally for people of colour. Due to COVID we wasn’t able to do a photoshoot with the creator of this account so I had to design and do illustrations to go alongside this interview.
The inspiration behind the illustrations for this interview was ‘Black is Beautiful’ gallery piece in 2020 by Aperture. This piece was an archive made up of Kwame Brathwaite’s fashion photographs in 1960’s and the message behind them about black culture and freedom. Kwame Brathwaite was a Brooklyn-born black photographer that dedicated his profession to capturing the lives of others, specifically focusing on black freedom and radical cultural production. He is credited to popularizing the famous term “Black is Beautiful” and in he was one of the few photographers who had perfected the photo technique that made black skin pop in photographs. The movement for black freedom was big at the time in Harlem and Bronx which is where he lived so his photographs reflected and documented the anger and frustration that underrepresented people felt at the time, capturing many protests and generally documenting black culture at the time. Women of colour were hugely affected by beauty standards at the time as there was no representation for them and so Brathwaite set out to change this and make “women feel proud of their hair, proud of their blackness”, recruiting women and teenagers to model in a community based fashion show, Natural 62: The Original African Coiffure and Fashion Extravaganza. The success of this allowed Brathwaite turn this into a business, allowing them to sell their vision of blackness to an international audience and raise awareness. Over the year Brathwaite became an international photographer and the catchy phrase he made, “black is beautiful” became more popular. Overall he helped make black nationalism artful and accessible to everyday black people, his photographs provided everyone with an insight to their lives and an understanding of the black freedom movement.
By Kwame Brathwaite, taken of Nomsa Brath wearing earrings by Carolee Prince, 1964
For the illustrations on this black project interview I knew I wanted to celebrate black culture and after researching into the story behind ‘black is beautiful’ and the origins of this quote I knew it was the perfect one to use. Brathwaite both celebrated black culture as well as raising awareness to the struggles they had to go through, showing the frustration and anger at the time. In the 60’s there was major movements for black culture, the main one being the civil rights movement, where African Americans and people of colour were fighting for justice and equality. Decades later, in 2020, with the black lives matter movement it shows that although we may have advanced in most areas and many years have passed people are still fighting for the same thing. Talking and creating art about this sensitive subject, especially as a white female has been hard but I feel that is essential to talk about and inform people what is going on.
Within my illustrations I wanted to show the frustrations of what people are feeling and have been feeling for decades. To do this I wanted to include illustrations of activist people partaking in recent protests so I illustrated people holding up signs with different quotes on.
After illustrating pieces that are purely showing the frustrations and emotions of people of colour in recent black lives matter protests i wanted to also include illustrations that are more of a celebration of black culture, to bring the light into a dark time. That is where this final spread comes into it. For this illustrative spread i was inspired by the “Black is Beautiful” quote and i wanted to create illustrations that instead of showing the anger, celebrated black culture and the beauty within this community.
