Reclaiming Power
Saffron Messam-Barnes and Xinyi He
The power visual media has over us has only increased over the years making us ever more influenced by it. Through my practice I am interested in exploring how to regain power through manipulating and re-appropriating media images. Posters serve to intrigue people and show them an element of the film, they also try to connect to an aspect of our identity and therefore become a representation of ourselves. By choosing mainstream movies I aim to open up conversations around representation and create a space where new meanings can be pulled out by placing the participants viewpoints inside of the images. By allowing participants to tear apart, collage and reassemble the posters, the original meaning is re-formed and a part of our identities become moulded into these creations. I am interested in this technique as way of questioning media imagery and asking whether we can re-gain the power to represent ourselves through manipulating mainstream media images.
