Introduction:

This project includes two collections of images base on research. First one is the image of signifier, texture, fabric, color, etc.  Most of my image I collected from the internet, websites like Pinterest. The second collection is more about context. I have visit two museums that are related to my theme identity, MoMA and Leslie-Lohman Museum. I want to figure out the relationship between self Identify and sexual orientation, which is too wide and complicated. During my research, I move my theme from LGBTQ to Gender because of the lack of experience with different sexual orientation. 

Explaination：

All these signifiers have come from observation in my life.

I started with five elements I picked that I think can represent gender, and especially as I identify myself as a female. At the beginning, I pick the color pink since it is always a color about fertility. It also remains me the pink pussy hat, which is a symbol for women’ right. I also think about knitting fabric. Knitting and waving always make a sense of warm and soft, like the gloves that grandma knitted for kids. Both male and female play an important role in a family. Green is also a color of life, which refers to the cell structure.

The other pattern I think about is Lace. Lace is a really important part of women fashion, from daily wear to luxury wedding dresses. Not only women can wear dresses, but there is also a traditional culture in Scotland that men wear skirts, called kilt. I also including the pattern of kilt as a signifier.

There is a list of Tie-Dye fabric in my taxonomy. I think the key element in Tie-dye is the randomness of color that formed by tie and fabric, just like my theme as gender identity.

Explaination：

I started my research with some gallery. I have visit Leslie-Lohman museum, Fierce pussy is a New York City-based queer art collective. The text with photography piece that I saw in the show is really impressive for me( in the left of my taxonomy). It also remains a feminists artist, Betty Tompkin, which also work with text with photography. Her works support women right, I understand some of her work as a subversion of the stereotype of women. She identifies herself as female, and be proud as women in this society. While I research, I also think about #me too.

From the right side, my research started from my daily observation. A block away from my dorm, there is a door of graffiti by Jgoldcrown. Many street arts also includes the concept of equality between different genders, and they are always strong at convincing their theme. I think it is because of the combination of text and image, and high contrast colors.

There are also some skulls illustration in my taxonomy. It is related to my understanding of human identity. Whatever gender is, everyone is combined with bones, muscles, and soul. There might be physical or metal different, but the structure of the human body always work the same. (not scientifically, just thoughts)

Bibliography of atists:

https://www.leslielohman.org/exhibitions/

https://www.artsy.net/artist/betty-tompkins

http://www.jgoldcrown.com/murals

Reflection：

What I learned about my topic through this image collection exercise was the way of thinking when doing research( like a mind map but not written).

What was most challenging about this research was to make a connection between all the material/images/ content.

how will you use what you learned from this assignment in the future? It will definitely help me in any of my research paper in the future. I also realized that in this assignment, I think more when I did research in the gallery instead of in front of the screen.