Vivianne Sassen's medium seems to be a digital camera. She makes use of lighting in many different ways including flash to create silhouettes, dark places with limited amount of and focused light in order to create illusions and color in things that ordinarily are drowned out by light. Her use of color is also unique in its dark, hollow sense to create images that look haunting. She experiments with aperture as well to emphasis elements in the photo as they relate to the subject.
Sassen's work focuses on the representation of the "other". She makes photographs that explore the ideas and stereotypes of the non-white or European descendant from the viewpoint of the West. Specifically, focusing on black children she portrays the stereotype of the pickaninny, dabbling into the idea that they are of nature, and savage-like.
I am an African American studies major and personally, I am glad that Sassen chose to represent this stereotype. She makes such beautiful shots of the children she photographs, particularly I love the way their skin looks with all the colors she emphasizes. Her photo with the boy traced in blue powder oddly reminds me of the postcards from antebellum times reflecting on how black children were used to lure in alligators. Sassen presents a shameful, but inevitable truth about the foundation of racist acts in our country.
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