Artist Statement

Title:     Prejudice – Don’t judge a book …

As the saying goes, “Don’t judge a book by its cover” which carry the meaning of don’t make pre-judgments or assumptions to someone or something based on their looks.  For my artwork, I’m making a book which covers the issue of sexism and racism: the two biggest issues of prejudice acts.

For sexism, there’s a silhouette of a man’s face overlaps a silhouette of a woman’s face. It represents a few things. Firstly, it shows that even though women have been recognized to be more than capable of achieving and doing the same tasks as the men but yet still statistic shows that men still dominates women in term of income and influence. Secondly, it represents that there’s a woman trapped inside a body of a man. The public are being more prejudice towards a man expressing his feminine side than a woman showing off her masculine side. The fact that we take the silhouette as an image of a man and a woman based only on the outline or the shadow proved that we all have a preset judgment on how a man and woman should look like.

For racism, my approach is a little bit more direct. There’s a silhouette of someone that appears wearing a scarf or hijab holding a rifle overlaps a silhouette of someone that appears wearing a suit holding a pistol. “Islamophobia” is a term to explain someone who is afraid of Muslims or someone whose appearance resembles the typical Arab looks: brown skin, lots of facial hair, etc. In my book, there’s a quote “This is terror” when you look at the first image and a quote “This is cool” when you look at the second image. This is to compare on how the westerners or most people perceived an Arabic soldier trying to defend his or her homeland as a terrorist and an agent, trained to assassinate and kill for money and fame as cool or awesome and sometimes be regards as a role model or an icon.

Silhouette is a good way to express things without much exposure. We make judgment based on our experience, surroundings and social conventions. I’m using silhouettes to expose on how shallow we are and how society shapes our minds into giving assumption and being prejudice.

Concept Board

The unfinished quote on a book cover shows that even though we are familiar with the saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover” and have an understanding of its meaning, we still doing it on daily basis. The simpleness of my concept board is to show that to pass on a great message or to give impact to society, sometimes the simple method is the best way to make them realize.