If you're an artist that's sitting around, desperately wishing for some fresh ideas to inspire you to motion, I got you.

I present Kristin-Lee Moolman and Camila Falquez:
https://instagram.com/kristinleemoolman?utm_source=ig_profile_share&igshid=1by26dfm1wkig

https://instagram.com/camilafalquez?utm_source=ig_profile_share&igshid=1smaexmqea01a

I want the future to look like this, fantasy should look like this. I want the collective conscious to fight the constant reiteration of the military aesthetic as sci-fi, Europe as fantasy, anime as appeal, grit as realism.

Not that there's anything wrong with any of those individually, but there's just so much more we could be exploring!!

So many pockets of beauty to expand on sitting right underneath the easy answer.

And, as an entertainment artist, I totally understand the power of clear, digestible communication. It's mind control.

But we can use those techniques without saying the same stuff.

I often think about how many easy answers in Western culture were designed and optimized for light skin/straight hair/sharp features. And how poc were long expected to conform to norms that weren't designed for them, because they were told the norms "Just work.".

Even still, today, I think about how the visual interest pattern of the black suit, white collar and tie are optimized to create an arrow silhouette that points toward the dark shapes of the eyes and mouth, within the triangular grouped light shape of a white face and collar.

That's what the outfit was designed to do, visually. This does not work with a dark skinned person, it creates a pocket of white in the center of their chest that groups with nothing, and the absolute contrast of white on a silhouette of black draws away from their features.

That's not to say Black people can't look good in a suit, we've made it work through color/value changes to tweak the visual interest pattern *cough Obama's tan suit cough* but I still think, fundamentally, the suit was not designed or optimized for us from the start.

I think about how Moonlight and Insecure are praised for !! Lighting black skin in a way visually optimized for it's unique qualities !! when Hollywood has been optimizing for light skin since it's inception.

I think about how Rose Gold is popular because it is Gold... optimized for white skin...

(Thank god yellow gold naturally compliments dark skin)

And recently I've been thinking about how the anime stylization is so efficient for communication, yet matches up so poorly with common black features or dark skin.

Recently, African Americans have been in a hair renaissance becuz we were finally able to wear our hair "in respectable settings" in styles optimized for our unique qualities, as opposed to styles optimized for straight hair.

This was hard fought, and is STILL being fought for.

Can you imagine how many more areas this could be true?

I firmly believe the creativity seen throughout the African American community stems from being forced to question every "easy answer" society presents us, because they're usually not made for our success.

I think these thoughts every time I look at entertainment art with dark skinned people in outfits designed for white people and see a "Meh" reaction.

Well of course. They didn't try, there's a tangible lack of coherence.

I think these thoughts every time I see a new sci-fi or fantasy movie/show/Illustration/book full of easy answers that "just work" and I know exactly why these fucking nerds still feel like black people don't belong in space.

In creating art, we have the opportunity to show the public conscious how things could be different than they are.

If we keep showing them worlds that are visually, narratively, thematically cohesive with whiteness... Then PoC will always FEEL out place.

Stretch that thought out to everything you care about (Queerness, Gender, Economics, the Military, Food, Music, Plants, Dance, etc) and search out the commonly accepted norms that disparage them.

Throw those away.

Then build your art out of whatever is left.

Then add depth! Keep moving, add contrast, a foil. String harmonies through it all. Be playful.

But you'll have a foundation that highlights that beauty, instead of trying to force it to shine in systems that actively work against it.

Unless, of course, that's the thematic goal. Art is fun like that. Have more fun with art.