While much art is made to convey beauty, it’s also a good medium for communicating ideas and truths about very un-beautiful things. Jennifer Johns, a graduate student earning her MFA of photography at Brooks Institute, uses visuals to tackle disturbing and controversial subjects in an effort to surmount the ignorance that often surrounds social issues. In The Visual Indoctrination of the Bigot, poignant mixed-media pieces currently on display at Gallery 27, Johns does exactly that, explaining that the exhibit aims to “confront stereotypes, specifically those against blacks and women.”
The exhibit is united by a common format — square plywood engravings of strong, positive images surrounded by a multitude of smaller, equally empowering photos that each possess an interactive slide tab or cutout door that reveals Google search results of racist and misogynistic ideas such as “women shouldn’t vote.” The result is an eye-opening and infuriating visual experience.
The first piece to draw me in was titled “Women Shouldn’t.” It features a plywood engraving of a woman standing, the shape of her head cut out and made into a door that opens to reveal Internet results of the most commonly searched phrases such as “women shouldn’t vote” and “women shouldn’t wear pants” — a disturbing reminder of the sexist beliefs that still exist today. However, to juxtapose the nasty bias, Johns has created a border around the plywood of pictures of women voting, teaching, learning, and doing all the things that Google search results said they shouldn’t do in an effort to inspire viewers to combat stereotypes against women.