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I don’t like to be very political on social media, but like many I was shocked by both the death of George Floyd and my own ignorance about the severity of still existing racism and prejudices against black, Asian and other non-white people in western societies. About how crucially important it is to educate ourselves on the matter, to understand causes, connections and biases and everyone’s responsibility to fight for equality.
Being one of many, I came across educator Jane Elliott, who has been saying things we needed to hear for decades. Some might feel offended sometimes, but she brings across ideas that are impressively on point. Most of them refer to the US but are definitely applicable to every society out there, too. Apart from reading and watching a lot about the topic, I felt the urge to support one of Elliot’s very important ideas (a quote she said during an interview for a BLACK NOUVEAU web exclusive).
That there is only one human race. Don’t deny skin color. People’s skins are their biggest organs, they look different for a fact and it would be ignorant to “see no color”. However, it would be mind-blowingly stupid to see a different race based on it.
I don’t know if I can do that woman’s views justice with this little piece of animation, but I tried and will keep trying as long as there’s among us this monster, called “racism”.
I don't want to focus too much on how I came up with the project technically, since it shouldn't be primarily what people take away from it, so only shortly: I rigged and animated the hand in C4D using cel shading and toon shading on top of it.
The brush strokes were done in Photoshop and brought into After Effects after, where I animated and composed them and everything else. The sound was selfmade or taken from freesound.org and I composed and produced the music using Garage Band.
The brush strokes were done in Photoshop and brought into After Effects after, where I animated and composed them and everything else. The sound was selfmade or taken from freesound.org and I composed and produced the music using Garage Band.
Back to Jane:
In 1992 Elliott did an anti-racist exersice during an Oprah show. She divided the audience based on the color of their eyes. While some felt offended, it perfectly showed to usually priviliged people, what racism can feel like.
Today, almost 30ys later, there's still so much educational work to do.
