Normal People Scare Me 2022

Editor: This is Joana Choumali's mixed-media piece, "Normal People Scare Me". It's quite large and striking. The figure stares directly at the viewer. What complexities do you see within this artwork? Curator: Choumali uses this banner to confront social anxieties and the pressure to conform. How might her Ivorian background inform her perspective on "normalcy" and societal expectations? Editor: Perhaps it speaks to a global experience of alienation, magnified by cultural displacement? Curator: Precisely. And note the integration of embroidery, which literally layers texture and meaning onto the photographic image, challenging conventional portraiture. How does that speak to the complexities of identity? Editor: I see a tension between the photographic representation and the added embroidery, it blurs lines between reality and imposed narratives. Curator: Absolutely. It makes me question the labels we assign ourselves and others. Editor: I hadn't considered the act of layering as a form of resistance. Curator: Art invites us to explore these intersections.