Anju Lukose-Scott
My photography helps me make sense of things I struggle with. In Body Politics I, I grapple with my relationship to my Indian culture. I speak only English fluently and can’t communicate easily with many of my family members. How does that disconnect manifest physically between me and the people who live in the culture that I can only try to relate to? How can you see this disconnect in the way I, versus my mother, wear a sari?
I have also been exploring my relationship with my Black family and my own identity as a Black person. Though I have so many things that connect me to my Jamaican heritage, I still feel removed from it because of how little I resemble my father’s side of the family. In Body Politics II, I frame my photographs using Blackness to focus on one message, meaning, or symbol for my identity. I am also conscious of how stereotypical my idea of Blackness is, and how those stereotypes are the only way I relate to my own self-image.
These two identity struggles come to a head in my four-image series, “Body Politics.” The contrast between the questions I ask about my Indian identity—which are internal and emotional—and the questions I ask about my Black identity—which are external and physical—shows through these images. My art does not focus on the answer to a question about self but rather the path I am taking towards those answers (which, more often than not, result in more questions).
I am inspired by Latoya Ruby Frazier, Andre D. Wagner, and Catherine Opie’s storytelling in their photographs, and Micaiah Carter’s and Myles Loftin’s use of bold color and texture to create interesting images. I am also constantly inspired by my peers and friends who are photographers and artists, and how they approach the same world I do. I take inspiration from these photographers and their art and apply it to my own work: I am constantly pushing myself to make my photographs more focused, striking, streamlined, and personal.