Tumaini: Dolls for Black Girls

Michelle (left) + Friends

I played with dolls until I was 13 years old, with all the active imagination and thrill necessary to make their world come to life. In my imagined world, my dolls were typical city people facing the troubles of relationships, girlfriends, boyfriends, cheating, and work. I had this Groovy Girl and I named her Michelle, she had light brown skin and big curly brown hair. I loved her dearly and used to 'borrow' my next door neighbors Groovy Girls clothes so she would always be looking fly. Although she had brown skin I remember always wishing that I could have beautiful bouncy curls like hers instead of my ole brillo like hair. I always used to make her swing her brown curls with attitude, wishing I could do the same. I was jealous of her and she soon became my ideal standard of beauty and penetrated my imagination. When making Sims characters, Michelle. When I would draw pictures, Michelle. When writing stories, Michelle. When trying to represent myself, Michelle. When thinking about who was beautiful, Michelle. Rarely did I see girls or women who looked like myself in my imagination.

Michelle was one of two black dolls I owned growing up. The second, her name is Stephanie. I have had her for as long as I can remember, but I have no recollection of ever playing with her. Stephanie is a dark skinned doll with shoulder length black yarn hair that resembles locs, she has a coy and full smile, broad nose, green and brown eyes that look up and to the left, and she wore a kitenge (Kenyan dress) - which has since been lost. She never garnered any interest in my childhood imagination so she remained at the bottom of my closet, then in a cold basement, then in a storage unit. A couple of years ago I finally unearthed Stephanie with surprise from a garbage bag full of toys I had been meaning to give to my younger cousins. Despite being in my adult years I gently dusted her off, warmly gave her a hug and apologized. Suddenly Stephanie seemed so beautiful and worthy of my love. Michelle who had also been in the bag with Stephanie harbored no sentiment, despite how integral she had been in my childhood she looked unfamiliar to me like an imagined person from a distant past. I threw Michelle + her friends into my suit case and delivered them to my cousins in Kenya who received them with delight, but I couldn't ignore the feeling of guilt I had giving them dolls that they likely couldn't see themselves in. 

I think there is something to say about people - particularly children, being able to see themselves in the things that they love. Whether it be TV shows, story books, games, or in my case dolls, I think having access to accurate representations of how we see ourselves is important in developing a sense of who we are. Flaws and all, I never realized how much of a privilege it was to be able to insert and see myself in my own imagination until it actually started to happen.

Tumaini
[To-My-Knee]

Tubetops, flowing skirts, bright prints, dreadlocs, pink hair and bare feet make me feel sexy

 I tend to be unimpressed with many things and question everything.

My waist is narrow and my hips are wide.

My booty is big and I have black stretch marks above my hips.

Smiles,

Tuly Maimouna

Found and Lost?: African Unity

I had intended on making and posting this on remembrance day in remembrance of the Kings African Rifle (KAR), but since the passing of Madiba Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela on December 5th 2013, this seemed fitting.

I feel conflicted. Mwalimu Julius K. Nyerere, visionary and former president of the United Republic of Tanzania in his 1983 speech stated that he was 'tired of being told that Tanzania's present condition arises out of our own mistakes of policy, our own inefficiency and our own over-ambition - that Africa's present condition is the result of African incompetence, venality or general inferiority in capacity, and being told that the solution to our problems is an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), despite the severity of the terms which can be obtained, followed by the single minded pursuit of private investment"

I completely agree with his sentiment, it is far too easy to blame the existing conditions of African countries solely on despotism, nepotism or political corruption. It is a surface level and simplistic analysis of issues that have deep historical roots. Yet still I remain conflicted. The evident regression of Tanzania in the past 15 years since Mwalimu Nyerere's passing I had to ask myself, how much responsibility does a democratically elected head of state hold when the trajectories established by former leaders are completely diminished? How have leaders gone from ambitious visionaries like former President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana who called for the African Peoples Congress Organization meeting in 1958 reflecting and promoting geographical unity (Nyerere, 1974). Leaders who believed in regional, national and intercontinental trade, founders of the East African Federation, leaders who believed in disaporic cooperation from the Pan-African Congress to the Organization of African Unity (OAU)? To ending up with leaders like Jacob Zuma the current president of South Africa, who recently raped a woman and justified it by saying she was wearing a short skirt. Or the Kenyan African National Union (KANU) the former Moi regime who in 1996 allocated over half of the public Karura forest located in  Nairobi for logging, to raise funds for his 1997 re-election (Njeru, 2010). Uprooting, displacing and destroying the livelihoods of thousands of people. In short what has happened to positive government leadership that people can believe in? So in the passing of Mzee Madiba Mandela, I felt worried. Has the passion and insight died along with the first African leaders of independent African nations? Have we lost the fundamental unity required for liberation? What has happened to the models of African liberation and African liberation movements our fathers and mothers of passed generations fought, suffered or died unflinchingly for? 

Like I said I feel conflicted, because the answers are not clear. Who is to blame? Or does it even matter? What I admired about Mandela, Nyerere and others was that their dialogue was not around who was to blame, but how we can move forward together. Investing in alternative models of political and economic development like the Arusha Declaration on Socialism and Self-Reliance or Rainbow Nation. If anything I hope that action oriented dialogues will persist with African leaders, that there will be an emergence of those who do not talk but live what they believe. I see glimmers of hope. Like the recent establishment of the East African Community's (EAC) Monetary Union, where Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi hope to merge currencies over the next 10 years and create a central bank to wean countries off foreign aid, and promoting south-south cooperation. I see grassroots organizations mobilizing people around the foundations of liberation that have not been taken up by existing governments. Unity is being taken up in varying shapes and forms in different capacities, and so I am also hopeful.

I decided to make this flower to represent my confliction, worry and hope as well as to acknowledge those fallen, lost, found, uplifted or caught between the challenges and successes of liberation. Red for the blood that unites us, the blood spilled and lost. Green for the rich land. Black for the people who belong to the land, and yellow for the characteristic and ever persistent sun that gives life. To the people past and present who participate in Africa's liberation from colonialism, oppression and racism, and for so humbly cooperating in laying down the foundations, supporting and believing in human liberation this is for you. Furthermore, to the people who never got recognition, farewell memorials, statues erected in their honor, medals, government compensation or even a thank you for taking up arms or non-violence because they believed in the independence, autonomy, freedom, dignity and unity for Africa I pay my respects. 

Smiles :)

Tuly Maimouna

Ukinzani: Universal Soldier

Ukinzani
[ou-keen-zah-knee]
My Symbol of Identity

I move fluidly and rigidly in and between defined lines, I am. Aspects of my identity do not move in a linear motion existing parallel to once another, but they encompass each other, bleeding into one another, all while feeding off of each others experiences. They can not function individually, but consistently contradict one another through their interactions both internally and externally. I was told I am black, I am learning that I am east African, I am trying to be human & I am embracing my sexuality as a universal soldier. But the hybridity of my layered existence has been challenging. I am trying to find a place where my contradictions can live simultaneously in harmony & peace. But which aspect of me comes first and which one is last? Well I was born as a human, I have lived as a visible black womyn all of my life, I became east African through working toward reconstructing my blackness and I am acknowledging that I have always been a universal soldier...that being the chronological order. More and more I have been thinking, do we create a hierarchy within ourselves where we relate more closely with other parts of ourselves than we do with the rest? And what facilitates the 'orderliness' of identity?

I have spent a lot of my life attempting to function on solely one level of my identity and it has sadly denied me from entirely experiencing myself. In intentionally refusing select aspects of my identity to fulfill the needs of another, I have been lying to myself and instilling a sense of falsehood in my existence and longing for who I want to be. I have come to learn that sometimes the contraction is intentional, for safety purposes. In hopes of blending in and actively avoiding confrontation and conversations which I did not at the time have the language, supports, courage or space to engage in. But that false sense of safety has been no compensation for the shame I have carried for years around my race, ethnicity and universality.

So let us start from the begin assuming the chronological order. I grew up in a white town, and other than my immediate and extended family my everyday life consisted of mostly in engaging with white people.

I remember being at school playing in the school yard and a kid stepped to me and said 'hey, do you know what a ABK is?' I said 'No..' she replied 'an African Butt Kisser!' so I told on the witch, and the teacher made us play together. The threat and discomfort of white people in addressing racism coupled with the ease of brushing it off because we are children, as many other encounters of isms it went unaddressed.

I remember always feeling so angry when other classmates assumed poverty with my ethnicity, and at age 10 having to carry the onus of challenging that alone without the support from teachers or peers.

I remember having  a family party at my house and inviting two of my closet friends, they left my house went down the street to eat food that was 'normal', on a another occasion someone threw up after smelling the food being cooked.

I remember riding my scooter with one of my only friends of colour growing up, and running into one of my closet friends at age 12. She stepped to me with three other white kids and said 'we don't like smelly Africans, do you know what we do to them?' She held up a plastic water bottle a filled with a yellow liquid and opened it. With a sly smile, and affirming laughter from the other kids she continued 'We pour dirty toilet water on them'. She proceeded to pour the water on my head. And as the piss water poured down my face I burst into tears not knowing what had prompted someone who I considered my friend to do such a thing. I was convinced it must have been the fact that I was a dirty African and not that she was racist.

I was absolutely brokenhearted and devastated to hear a childhood friend of mine tell me after over 10 years of friendship that 'growing up we made you feel welcome!' hastily suggesting that I did not belong in that space. 

More recently I was so disappointed having a friend of 13 years refer to me to her white friends as her 'black friend'.

This has been my experience of the ethno/racial aspects of my identity with non-racialized people. As I got older and I started having more black friends I realized that there was an ethnic divide, that even to this day the black 'community' does not address. In being black I was forced to subvert my 'Africanness'. I am choosing to call this my doubled otherness, because not only was I a visible minority among whites, I was also an ethnic minority among blacks. I remember not wanting to carry the food I love and ate at home, and recall being absolutely terrified to talk about my heritage, because it was always understood to be located in a backward, weird, ugly, smelly, desolate, or undesirable place in the world. So for a long time I only assumed a black identity to subvert my ethnicity in hope of to escape being associated with its distorted ideologies.

In accepting my universality I have also chosen to deny myself in identifying my sexuality. In naming who I claim to be within the limiting lables of  sexual identity I become overwhelmed with the inability & space to be anything else. Trapped.  In naming my sexuality I force myself into a rigid place that assumes an unshifting set of desires. In indulging or admitting to the fluctuation of my desires I lose respect from my peers for engaging in them, and through that I somehow delegitimize my sexuality. Then there is the intersection of my universality and my 'Africanness', which at this point I would rather not talk about in depth because I intentionally keep them separate. I can not risk losing support of my extended family, relationships I have for so long been detached from for reasons of physical distance and circumstance, and have grown to value these relationships beyond anything. In this case I also face losing my connections to east Africa and it becomes meaningless a geographical space. For it is not the geographical area that matters, but the connections established with the people who live there that solidifies my attachment to the space. And in growing up as a black person in Canada there has always been the assumption that I do not belong, so If I lose my east African ties then where will I belong? So yet again I find myself having to revert to safety tactics of subverting, prioritizing and lying about my identity to keep a sense of belonging within a 'community' and family that is supposed to act as a support mechanism...simply because if I am rejected then who else will I turn to? My experiences again become void, false and undesirable. I am left floating between who I really am and who I claim to be.

I beg, please disagree with me. The intersections and the complexities of our identities are lived out differently for many reasons not limited to; where we physically are located, how we situate and adapt our selves within that location, how others experience us and we them...and so on. The process of learning and unlearning who I am has proven to me to be circular, I have had to revisit who I was to deepen my understanding of who I believe I am today. My identity contradiction arises from searching and longing for a space to belong. They lie within who I claim myself to be internally and the way it is manifested externally through my identities interaction with everyday life. The challenges in finding this space is heightened by feeling like I have to exist on a parallel level where my identities can not intersect. In my experience, the hierarchy and prioritizing of my identity is deeply influenced by where I am located, and how that identity will be understood externally. Currently, I am searching for a space where I simply just am a hybrid being...if such a place exists...

To end with a quick quote I heard a brilliant mind once share that is constantly on my mind, 'complex not complicated'

Smiles :)

Tuly Maimouna

Sexploration: Tantalizing Titties! Crochet Pasties for Areola of Colour!



Tantalizing Titties
Crochet Pasties
$15.00

I have been on this interesting personal journey for a while. I am currently in the midst of trying to expand my sexual possibilities and figuring out what that even means. I initially thought that this journey was only about exploring and finding a personal definition of what sex is, but after having some really insightful conversations in some really...interesting locations I have come to find that so many other aspect of myself are tied into this three letter word.

Prior to taking the first few steps of this journey I had to first sit down and seriously think about what my boundaries are and what I need to say and do in order to keep things safe, consensual and above all sexy. As many things it has been an amazing up and down learning experience.Thus far I have learned that my boundaries aren't static, they shift and really do depend on context; like how I am feeling that day, who the person(s) involved are, or where I am and these different variables influence how I navigate my exploration from one experience to another.

So as a part of this sexual exploration I am now calling sexploration my girl who has whole heartedly supported many of my wild ideas, together we will be venturing into the unknown to check this fetish party and the first thing she asked me was 'ooooh my gosh girl, what are we wearing?!' Now I dunno about y'all, but I think that whether you are going to a wedding or a fetish party what you wear is a question that must always be answered, and your answer must be delivered in the most fly way possible!....but how? 

A few days ago another friend of mine was really excited to show me these nipple pasties that her friend had bought for her. They were really dope, but there was one problem...they were made for white peoples breasts. I am not  saying that there is anything wrong with white people breasts, in fact I think all breasts equally rule! But just like clothes that don't fit right I am not going to wear something that wasn't made for me or made to suit my body. So we resolved to make our very own sexy pasties for areola of colour! I decided to call them tantalizing tittes because I think mine are just that! I always tell people that I want my titties to look as tantalizing as possible, and lets be honest here whose wouldn't be when adorned with crochet goodness, and golden nipple piercings with chain tassels?

Sexploration for me is keeping an informed and open mind in finding out what works for me, and what I wear (or don't) is a reflection of just that. So I'll flaunting my sexy, big and brown areola in my own fashion.

shake your big brown areola, cause they tantalizing too!

Smiles :)

Tuly Maimouna

My vulva is...

My vulva is...http://myvulvais.blogspot.ca/

A couple of months ago I wrote and artducation post talking about the crochet vulva pins that I make and my personal response to how bodies of colour have historically been sexualized and represented. They have been selling out completely, i never would have imagined that they would be received in such a positive way by such a diverse array of people. Since that post I have had many interesting conversations that have opened my eyes to the different social, political and biological meanings that vulvas have. So I have been busy at work putting together a new blog where people who have vulvas, love em or simply want to know more about them can come and share knowledge that speaks positively about our bodies from our own experiences. I so humbly invite you to check out My vulva is... and to think about/share what your vulva means to you and why you would wear your vulva.

Smiles:)

Tuly Maimouna

'Contemporarily' Historical?

When I was in high school as a part of my a final media project, some peeps and I came together and made a documentary on HIV and black youth in the city of Toronto. Mind you the population of colour in my school was minimal, there were only three authority figures of colour and a scoop of black students. The racial divide was clear, yet the school did nothing to address that. And why should they? Most of us were there due to circumstance trying to attain our french immersion certificate. Bless their hearts, they really tried their hardest to get the darkies out by attempting to convince our parents that French was not our strong suit and we'd get better marks if we dropped out of the program. Dropping out would have led to us ultimately having to leave the school and go to schools closer to where we lived. There is always a clear message and distinction between what people say and what they do. Our school did not provide many opportunities (other than black history month) for youth of colour to address issues that are relevant to them. As I said before in a previous post, black populations are seldom represented beyond traumatic events, and this includes black history month. There is too much focus looking at the past while we ignore the contemporary issues that affect our present. There is a huge disjuncture in creating linkages between historical and contemporary 'blackness', we are contemporarily historical! My problem was and still is that black history month celebrations never seem to be more than a show, in the ones I have attended seldom have I been left thinking about current issues. That is why it was so important to make this documentary around HIV, we wanted to outline how race as a systematic reality in Canada affects vulnerability to HIV and stress why youth involvement in all capacities is beyond necessary.

While that documentary is now a bit dated and I have since graduated high school (and yes of course with my french immersion certificate), recently some friends and I got together to try and address the different aspects of vulnerability to HIV within communities of colour. Taking a more holistic look at what the African, Caribbean and Black (ACB) community looks like, this multi series installment looks at the different challenges and barriers faced by young persons of colour through the different aspects of their identity beyond race. Participants were able to share ideas about what HIV looks like or does not look like, and examine the obstacles faced in those contexts. Through a collaborative effort each individual had their own installment within the larger idea of sex and sexual health. The creative process was entirely up to the group empowering them to explore more personal ideas of self, community and HIV, and to interpret and identify the intersecting points through their own eyes and own lived realities. Check the images below to see a bit of what we did!

While this is not a craft I normally talk about, it is true that different art mediums produce different responses, outcomes and interpretations. The audience is able to place themselves within an image that fairly represents the artist, and it has the ability to facilitate an internal dialogue that informs external ones. This collaborative effort was effective in doing that because each piece of work served to work as a means to reclaim space and increase visibility in a way that each individual wanted to be represented. I believe that the use art mediums has the potential to challenge ideas that place the onus of talking about and understanding race relations on populations of colour while somehow neutralizing white populations in these discussions. Artistic forms cut across all borders and transfer messages we are seldom given the chance to vocalize. If my high school experience taught me anything it was that we have to work together to create platforms where our lived experiences are given meaning and they become building blocks and tools of power for the present and future.

crafts speak volumes!

Smiles :)

Tuly Maimouna

What happened to all the book worms?

Book MONSTER!
material: 100% worsted
Size:10'
Stitch: Single crochet

....the book monsters ate em all! Growing up I was never really too big on books, mostly because up until I was in grade three I had trouble reading. The weird thing is that I always used to read with my mom before going to sleep as a child, but for some reason when in school the ability somehow escaped me...so I used to attend after school reading classes with my homeroom teacher. Since then I have developed a healthy appreciation for reading, I have come to the conclusion that it stems from past inability! My appreciation has manifested its self in different ways throughout the years, and reading has developed beyond an action or pass time to a deeply personalized experience.

I first started reading novels by black authors when I was in high school. It first started off with black erotica, anything from Eric Jerome Dickey to Mary, B Morrison was a must read, which is probably attributed to underlying teen sexual frustration haha! But more importantly while reading I started to realize that it was hard for me to imagine black characters in novels, and to this day it honestly still proves to be a challenge for me. I thought "oh gosh, has my mind been white washed?" This was really a troubling thought for me, so I started to look for books that distinctly addressed historical events pertaining to the black diaspora. Books like, Roots By Alex Haley, The Book of Negros By Lawrence Hill and so on. While this proved to be helpful, I hated the idea of black populations not being represented beyond traumatic events of displacement, and mostly I did not relate to these stories because my experience of 'blackness' is fragmented between being a racial minority and being of East African decent.

While searching for 'new' types of stories, to my surprise (not really) the only ones I could find in school/public libraries & book stores were stories about slavery,  war/political/civil unrest, travel guides or half-assed romanticized Eurocentric novels about African countries. Never stories of the Africa (I am using this term loosely) I have known, lived and understood. I also started to wonder why novels by African authors outside of those themes are so inaccessible. A lot of novels available on African countries tend to speak to non-African understandings of those countries experiences, so stories of love, families and everyday life outside of trauma, poverty and despotism seldom matter or exist in the conscience of the reader, or more frequently, the idea that these themes can not exist seperately. In the search for new literature my eyes were forced open to ideas and questions that extend beyond the books themselves.

I only recently started to think critically about the novels I had been forced to read throughout primary and secondary school. What obligation or responsibility does a white author have to represent bodies of colour? Should schools be forced to teach black diasporic history beyond slavery? What implications/ repercussions does ignoring contemporary African history have on the black diaspora? How has the absence/under representation of bodies of colour in government school curriculum, and mainstream media affected how and where people of colour place themselves within these exclusive and selective outlets, and how does this effect the way we navigate ourselves through everyday life? While all these questions require larger discussions and subsequently greater actions, my first step is to change the limitations my socialized imagination by inserting characters of colour into contemporary western stories that I read to challenge normalized ideas of white bodies as a neutral or default characters, and secondly to continue reading novels by various African authors past and present.

Books by various African authors

My favourite novels by African authors:
1. Ambiguous Adventure - Cheikh Hamidou Kane (Senegal)
2. Tsotsi - Athol Fugard (South Africa)
3. Tales Told by the Son of Kenya - Aggrey Chepkwony Sambay (Kenya) 
4. Going Down River Road - Meja Mwangi (Kenya)
5. A Grain of Wheat - Ngugi wa Thiong'o (Kenya)
6. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe (Nigeria)
7. On To Kilimanjaro - Brain Gardner (this book is an exception because is not by an African author, but it gives you a very clear definition between self representation, and othering )

If you're a book worm like me, don't let the book monsters take away the ability to exercise your imagination by keeping truly reflective stories out of reach. Go out and look for a good book.

Smiles :)

Tuly Maimouna

P.S. If you are interested look up Roots (Alex Haley) vs.The African (Harold Coulter)...a really interesting back story to our friend Kunta Kente and the so called "timeless American Saga"

Dolli

Dolli
size: 18'
material: 100% worsted
stitch: single crochet

I decided to make a dolli of myself...why? It has always been a challenge to find a black doll that I can look at and see myself. Just cause a doll has black skin does not mean it can stand to represent the complexities and variations found within black populations. So this dolli is my big "Eff you". If how I look is not marketable or profitable, I'll do it myself simply because I can.

Smiles :)

Tuly Maimouna

Artducation: Vulvas?

Crochet vulva's

 I have been making these vulva pins for a while and giving them to my friends as gifts, as well as rocking my own. I have been presented with varied reactions from both friends and strangers

"Ew!"

"So F***ING COOL!"
"What is that?"

"Why would you make this?"

Why would i make this...? It is not so much the question that bothers me, but the tone in which the question is asked. There is a lot of disgust and hostility, but ultimately interest. I was recently at a symposium where we spoke about how different vulva's can look and how in text books they are presented as uniform; symmetrical labia, hairless, and cut off from the rest of the body. So that night I came home and looked up diagrams of vulva's. I was baffled (not really) when I tried to look for diagrams that show vulva's that belong to bodies colour and...surprise! I found none! Now you might think, well a vulva is a vulva...right? Yes and no. Sure I've got a vulva and you may have one too, but historically bodies have been presented through race (racialization) and through that, differences have been assumed to justify many historical events that books don't often tell you about. Let us take a few steps back and look at the well known hottentot venus exhibition of Saartjie Baartman, a relative of the Khoikhoi ethnic group born in 1789 in the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa.

In 1735, Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778) divided humans into four racially classified subspecies: Homo sapien americancus (Amerindians), europaeus (Europeans), asiaticus (Asians), and afer (Africans) (Hamilton, 2008).  Later, anthropologist Jonathan Marks attributed traits and behaviours to these subspecies, calling the afer “black, impassive, lazy. Hair kinked. Skin Silky. Nose flat. Lips thick. Women with genital flap; breasts large. Crafty, slow, foolish. Anoints himself with grease. Ruled by caprice.” (Hamilton, 2008). Another example of this is the French scientist Georges Cuvier (1769-1832) who also based his findings on the taxonomy of Homo sapiens and depicted the afer as “marked by a black complexion, crisped or woolly hair, compressed cranium and a flat nose. The projection of the lower parts of the face, and the thick lips, evidently approximate it to the monkey tribe; the hordes of utter barbarianism.” (Hamilton, 2008). From this established approach to race in academia in the eighteenth century, there is an acknowledgement and acceptance to the validity of the racialization of traits and the hierarchy based off of it. The Hottentot Venus exhibit recreated and brought these ideas throughout Europe, it specifically reinforced and reflected race based on the social hierarchies that existed. The presentation and representation of black bodies in contrast to white ones placed emphasis on differences, and more specifically differences of physical anatomy. The anthropological rhetoric represented the Hottentot as primitive, inferior, secular and uncivilized  and from this made distinct connections between the Hottentot and animals. Labeling black bodies as primitive attributed animal characteristics to them, such as animalistic instincts of reproduction  “…Buffon stated that this animal-like sexual appetite went so far as to lead black women to copulate with apes” (Gilman, 1985). Academic travelers went further as to say that the black woman also show external signs of being primitive, from “Steatopygia a protruding buttocks resulting from the accumulation of fat, and what was then called the “hottentot apron” the elongated labia of the genitalia” (Moudileno, 2009) (see fig.1). 

Saarjtie Baartman’s exhibit relied heavily on the discourse created by academic and scientific elites. These assumptions  presented as fact romanticized ideas about non-white populations, and constructed a false identity that according to Gareth Knapman (2008) pushed non-white populations to a status below that of white Europeans. By labelling these populations as animals, an ideology of inferiority became common thought.

fig 1 the external genitalia of the Hottentot Venus, standing upright

200 years later and this is the only image of the vulva of a woman of colour?! So when someone asks me why I made this I tell them that I am serving to represent my own vulva, sexuality and ultimately myself. And of course I'm gonna make a pin and make sure its all up in your face! Additionally I love making people feel uncomfortable...for a good reason though! I believe that when we are the most uncomfortable is when we are in a space to absorb knowledge and have conversations that we might not otherwise have. We must keep in mind that knowledge and academia are never depoliticized spaces and they entirely selective, meaning there is choice in what is included or excluded given the political and economic climate...think of it like the news, there is always another part of the story we don't hear and we have to be critical and ask why. Knowledge as a form of power is inaccessible for a variety of reasons and it has always been used as a tool of inclusion and exclusion....but that's a whole other conversation!  It's actually hilarious to me when it falls on the ground, and someone will be like "oh, you dropped something!" they go to pick it up for me, but immediately hesitate and retreat once they see what it is. I always say "Ooups, I dropped my vulva!" smile and walk away. Sometimes you have to laugh at other peoples expense, so make things that have a personal statement and challenge normative ideas, it makes your craft that much more meaningful.

Smiles:)

Tuly Maimouna