Megan Morgan: Anthropomorphosis

July 14-September 25, 2011

CIIS Minna Street Gallery

Artist Statement: Megan Morgan 

I want to create work that shares with an audience, particularly oppressed and marginalized groups, the sense of agency artistry offers, the empowerment…I want to reiterate the message that ‘we must learn to see’. Seeing here is meant metaphysically as heightened awareness and understanding, the intensification of one’s capacity to experience reality through the realm of the senses.

                                                                                                                        bell hooks

Hybridity in its many forms interests me. Race, like gender and fabric is a form of camouflage. It covers and defines the body. It is not static. It is categorical and at the same time manages to erase and speak for identity; it is flawed.

My work investigates the complexities and constraints involved when discussing the subject of race, gender and family history; the very things that inform identification. My concerns also have a psychological orientation. The only way to reconstitute yourself when you have been consistently misidentified is to confront subjectivity and perhaps even become the very “thing” that objectifies and categorizes you. My aims seek an in depth look at the parameters, definitions and constructs of identity.

Primarily I use the media of photography and video. My interpretations serve a larger purpose that is aimed at questioning categorization. I perform and document challenging activities and moments that have been recounted to me from my family history, chronicling the struggles that accompany these metaphors for our daily and contemporary existence.