Zavia Forrest

Over(sexualized)stimulated in Blk

A found footage compilation of famous Black women in media, and the visuals behind their artistry. The work interrogates the oversexualization of Black women in media.

“In this work, and throughout the culmination of my studies and specialization, I have had a focus on the Black female body, and the ways in which it is analyzed, manipulated, and interpreted in society. My focus has been on the complexity of body, and how these complexities play out in modern-day societies, especially with the creation and evolution of media. Black womanhood, and the feminine-resenting body, suffers from a multitude of abuse and control, such as fetishization, commercialization, as well as the intersections of both racism and sexism, or misogyny (often referred to as 'misogynoir' when considering Black, feminine-presenting people). With this work, the piece intends to use both sound and visuals to both overstimulate the viewers, but create different perspectives in which the body can be viewed and absorbed in. The piece contains a compilation of popular musicians and their content in media, engineered in a way that the viewer consumes all at once.”