Self- Introduction

 

    My name is Dominique Graves- Holley and I'm a biology major. This is my third year at NJCU and I'm from Plainfield, Nj. I'm a Virgo and I just turned 20 this month. My ultimate career goal would be to become a Nurse Practitioner. Currently, I am pursuing a job in a group home for handicapped adults. Outside of school and work, a goal of mines is to do a cross-country road trip with my friends. I've always wanted to travel and I have not left the east coast or been on a plane. Eventually, I would like to travel outside of the United States and get to learn about the culture of other countries.  

    I chose Barbara Kruger as an inspiration for this week's selfie. Kruger inspired me because of her captions. In today's society, people add captions and labels to everything. Scrolling through our timelines we see endless images with captions and hashtags. Some of us may not put any further thoughts into our captions and what we chose to put as hashtags, while others may spend hours thinking of a caption that will "hit". As someone who scrolls through social media endlessly through the day, I don't think too much about the caption or what a hashtag means. Kruger on the other hand does. Her red text is meant to stand out over the black and white images to draw the audience in. It is not meaningless or ill-thought-out. She wants her artwork to create multiple meanings and make the audience try to form a relationship between the words and the image. Kruger skews the images and popular phrases from mass media to create new meanings and ideas. Kruger focuses on identity and society frequently, something that interests me. As a young person entering adulthood while in a pandemic and witnessing the effects of climate change, I have had lots of time to think about my own identity and my culture to create who I am. I had time to read and learn about my history and the effects of my actions. I constantly consume media, excessively shop, follow trends, and conform to labels that were placed on me. Kruger's work made me more aware of my actions, and I have taken small steps to improve myself. To create my own identity that will better myself and those around me.