BLM | domadovgialo

What's been on your mind during the current BLM Movement? This is an online collaboration inviting people (whom I photograph) to use their portraits to reveal their innermost thoughts through drawing and writing. Despite it's necessity, the current BLM movement has caused many BIPOC racial battle fatigue, anxiety and daily stress. I hope that this project can bring awareness to the importance of BIPOC Minds. Shot online.

"I'm not trying to assimilate or whitewash

Strength in my melanin

I represent the grit of my ancestors

We are all pieces of those before us

You see me

You hear me

You notice how different our clothes are, how different my skin is

You hear my different accent

Different perspectives

Different ways of seeing I guess

My point is you see me

But if all you see is what’s different

You haven’t really seen me

I want to say stop seeing me in a way

Start feeling me"

- Simba

"This has also been a period of introspection for me as a mixed race woman. Looking at and understanding the privilege that I have been given, but also looking at the times when I let my team down by not speaking up and not confronting racist comments or experiences either that have been directed at me or those around me. I won’t be silent anymore, even when it makes others uncomfortable because I have been given the opportunity to fight for what’s right and although the small echo chamber that is my Instagram or my friendship circles appear to be moving in the right direction we can’t think that this battle is anywhere near over. We must stay angry, we must keep fighting and we must continue to amplify black voices while we have the worlds attention and long after this."

- Patricia

"It is like the rest of the world is discovering racism while black people, who know it too well, are now also contending with its reverberations online.

It is encouraging to feel that the world might be shifting, finally, but it is also exhausting to be hyper-exposed to painful things while still majorly isolated from your support systems.

I quarantined by myself and didn’t see anyone at all for 2.5 months, but I protested last week. It was a easy choice for me: if you choose to insist on seeing racism and the pandemic as distinct and separate things, then you have a situation where black people are a group affected by both and white people by one (and disproportionately less so than black people). By protesting, black people are saying we need to make both these things a priority. By condemning the protests, you’re saying that we need to choose one and that it needs to be the one that affects you as a white person. BUT they aren’t separate, and the pandemic has unfolded along the lines of systemic racism." - Oyin.

“It’s sad that it has taken a video of someone being murdered for so many people to realise this is an issue.

It shocks me that ‘Black Lives Matter’ is still even a statement.

Social media is what is making this movement different to previous ones.

But also social media is a show, its a presentation. I’ve seen a lot of people posting black squares on Instagram, but not signing the petition. I do hope that once the media dies down and things get calmer I hope we still have enough allies and people doing the work to make a continued change on this matter.”

- Olivia.

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