Pariah: This film explores the rocky relationships that Alike has with her family, best friend, and love interest as she struggles with coming out to her family and embracing her sexual identity as a lesbian.

Taylor: Documenta 11, an exhibition that included work from artists all over the globe, creates global awareness while questioning the meaning of globalization in an economic and political context.

Thompson: Artists from Africa and the Diaspora challenge Western representations of Black women as “beasts, nymphs, slaves, servants, and sexual commodities” by negotiating, reconstructing, and decolonizing these stereotypes.

In Decolonizing Black Bodies: Personal Journeys in the Contemporary Voice by Barbara Thompson, I was particularly intrigued by Malick Sidibe’s attempt to negotiate Black women’s sexuality and reject Western notions of nude seduction through photography. In Mali, where female nudity is not accepted, pagnes (wrappers) are worn by women to accentuate their figure and evoke male curiosity. While reading this section, I thought about Olympia, a painting by Edouard Manet that illustrates a Black female servant who is robbed of her sexuality by her worn drapery of fabric. Unlike the woman in Olympia, women in Sidibe’s photos are desirable and able to express their sexuality while being fully clothed. I view Sidibe’s photos as a compromise between being too modest and too sexual, while providing Black women agency and giving them the space to portray their desirability without feeding into the stereotype as “sexual commodities” or promiscuous nymphs.

In addition, I appreciated the freedom of expression and the reinvention of identity that Sidibe’s photography enabled, because it allowed Malian women to explore their desired modern image without risking their reputation and marriageability. His photo studio served as private, safe space of identity negotiation as opposed to the public space of traditional identity outside of the studio.

Lastly, I noticed that Sidibe’s photography focused on evoking male curiosity, instead of curiosity in general, which makes me question the recognition of homosexuality in Malian culture. How do lesbian and queer Malian artists express their sexuality through photography and other forms of media?