Week 3 discussion post

Visual Art Male gaze The article “ Spectatorship, power, and knowledge” relate to the male gaze concept. Male gaze, a subset of the gaze concept, refers to the concept of heterosexual males sexualizing female characters, which is still relevant today. The article adds another term, spectatorship, and the authors posit that a spectator’s gaze includes subsumes the subject, places, institutions, and objects that are a gaze’s source. People usually consider the manner in which texts, images, or scenes invoke particular responses from certain viewers, such as female or male viewers (Sturken and Cartwright, 102).
Marginalization
Marginalization refers to the relegation of people or societies to the fringe preventing meaningful participation (Faizi 29). The examples of marginalized people are many. I have seen many homeless people spending their lives in subways or under some bridge, and their presence always conjures the concept of marginalization. Governments and social care offices have excluded these people; that is what I feel when I see them.
Artists need space, and this demand drives them to work and live in marginalized regions. However, other factors motivate artists to marginalize themselves. Some of the factors are pragmatic while others are philosophical. The overriding reason, though, is that artists see assets, possibility, opportunity, and potential for conversion where other people see deficiency and blight (Jackson 5).
Accessibility
Cities that are highly connected provide accessibility. One can hop from a bus to another means of transport say an electric train making movement easy. Accessibility invokes feelings of belonging, and it empowers men, women, and young people alike. They can take part in various things that are of economic and social value. Accessibility and empowerment create conditions that conjure self-reliance, confidence, and capacity to make strategic choices in life.
Works cited
Sturken, M., & Cartwright, L. (2009). Spectatorship, power, and knowledge. In Practices of looking: An introduction to visual culture (pp. 123-136). New York: Oxford University Press.
Faizi, Amir Afaque Ahmad. Self-Help Groups and Marginalized Communities. Concept Publishing Company, 2009. Print.
Jackson, Maria Rosario. “ Developing Artist-Driven Spaces in Marginalized Communities.” 2012: n. pag. Print.