Morgan Markey

In "The Coloring Book", Morgan Markey addresses institutional and inherent racism by subverting the idea of a traditional children’s coloring book. Outlined in this coloring book are scenes of police brutality in the United States. Alongside the publication, Morgan provides both a lighter and darker skin toned marker to fill in the images. The reader is left to decide who in the image has lighter skin and who has darker skin. By making these assumptions, the reader is faced to reconcile with their own inherent racism and biases due to the social and political environment we live in, where black and brown people continue to be abused and murdered at the hands of law enforcement.

Early exposure to films, discriminatory practices towards dark coloured skin within the make-up and fashion industries, as well as the overuse of white female bodies in advertising have attempted to convince young women that white beauty is beauty.

After discovering the popularity of modification practices to lighten the nipple and genitalia in various parts of the world, I decided to create this photo as a way of both addressing and mocking ideas of white idolisation. This scene depicts a moment where a mixed-race woman makes a haphazard attempt to assimilate to white female beauty standards.

Societally periods are a mark of embarrassment and shame for most women. Cutting cherries on a rag is a visual representation of period blood on a rag. Cherries, a sexual symbol that has historically been used to refer to a women’s virginity, is used strategically in this image: to make the viewer think of periods and sex within the same context. This subversion provokes the viewer to recontextualise and reconsider the menstrual cycle.

The events of the Vietnam War are deeply rooted in the history of young Americans yet for many, it feels out of reach and forgotten. A visual narrative of my experience in a country where the traces of its colonial past are hard to escape. Throughout this series of photographs, a timeline is set between three dates – the date of the Vietnam War, followed by my date of birth, ending with the date of entry into Vietnam. The timeline set alongside 35mm black and white photographs is meant to emphasise the significance of time. Using black and white 35mm film makes the timeline of the photographs unclear, which points to the nebulous qualities of history itself. What are the parallels between how time changes our relationship with history versus how time changes a specific location? How can a photograph be representative of that change? How much has time changed history? Or has the only change been our memory of it. This book stands as a testament to how little has changed in places that have been victims of war and inspires the audience to locate themselves in their own history by travelling and documenting.