Sofia Szamosi

#MeToo on Instagram One Year Later

Sofia Szamosi

#MeToo on Instagram One Year Later

Date

2018

Edition Size

30

Media

Screenprint, Silkscreen

Binding

Hand-sewn, Pamphlet

Format

Artist Book

Dimensions

10.25 × 10 × 0.5 in

Location

Brooklyn, NY

Printer

Shoestring Press

$ 480.00

3 in stock


View Collectors

Bard College

#METOO ON INSTAGRAM: ONE YEAR LATER is a collection of drawings based on Instagram posts from October 2018 that were tagged with the hashtag #METOO.

The illustrations are simplified, graphical renditions of the original photos. Many details are omitted and others highlighted. No details were invented or added. The words are all direct quotes from the users’ original captions. Some captions are shown in their entirety, while others are excerpts.

“When I started my search for #METOO posts to draw, I was not sure what I would find. I was surprised to discover such a wide variety of posts under the #METOO hashtag. Now an umbrella for more than 1,553,299 posts. What started out as a rallying cry, a call to arms, or a brave coming out, has morphed into . . . all that, plus almost everything under the sun.

The #METOO movement was founded by activist Tarana Burke over ten years ago on MySpace, but in October 2017 when the allegations against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein began to surface, the hashtag of solidarity went viral. Celebrity brought on media attention, which is great, however, most people confronting workplace harassment, sexual assault and rape aren’t in the limelight; they are without the social and economic resources and entitles of celebrity.

Instagram can feel like one’s own little limelight, a more accessible space for specking out and coming forward, making it an important medium for growing activism and solidarity. And/But the platform’s nature means there’s the potential for more of everything to grow there: more connection, more commentary, more costuming, more commiseration, more healing, more marketing, more appropriation, and everything in between.

Offline, the METOO movement is here and not going away, even in the face of apparent defeats like the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation. Meanwhile, online does the evolution of the hashtag into a catch-all mean that it’s been oversaturated and consequently drained of meaning? Or maybe that its meaning is collection, in creative flux? #METOO has become a symbol of solidarity, of coming together and coming forward, of speaking up, of speaking out, but also speaking over, of selling promoting, and marketing. Does that expansion drain it of its power? Does everything on social media eventually become marketing or get used to market something else? Or can social justice movements nevertheless grow and stay vital there? How?” — Sofia Szamosi, artist.