Stereo Styles

Accompanying these ten photos is ten descriptive words placed on a thin black strip, written in white cursive that read: ‘Daring,’ ‘Sensible,’ ‘Severe,’ ‘Long and Silky,’ ‘Boyish,’ ‘Ageless,’ ‘Silly, ‘Magnetic,’ ‘Country Fresh,’ and ‘Sweet.’ Simpson has added more depth and emotion to this piece by creating a drop shadow under each individual photograph.

[1] Lorna Simpson is a feminist photographer from Brooklyn, New York whose subject matter solely focuses on young African American women.

Her practices are meant to convey powerful messages, to “allude to grapple with portraits of the past [and] to reimagine black women’s places in the visual dimensions of the American symbolic order.” [3] Simpson is successful in creating a powerful piece out of Stereo Styles from the seriousness of the black and white to the undertone of sarcasm in the descriptive words written in the center.

Similarly, the public was not avidly following the African American movement, making the transformation of hairstyles a message to society that things are beginning to change.

This piece is meant to empower young black women to succeed in modern America but also emphasizes the presence of racial controversies that need to be made aware of.