IMPOSTER (I)

Scroll down to see how this piece looks in a room

Imposter syndrome. If you’re a woman, and especially a woman of colour, you’ve heard about this psychological pattern umpteen times by now, and perhaps been told you have it, or have felt like you have suffered from it.

We are often made to feel like we don’t belong, that we are indeed unqualified, or undeserving.

The key part is that we are made to feel it.

As Ruchika Tulshyan and Jodi-Ann Burey write in this article, “we don’t belong because we were never supposed to belong. Our presence in most of these spaces is a result of decades of grassroots activism and begrudgingly developed legislation.” They point out that making it a label and a syndrome presumes that the victims need fixing. It is the systems and cultures that make us feel that way that need fixing.

The iridescent paint gleams differently in different light settings. On the top are light-weight wood panels stuck on, and subsequently, partially ripped off.

36h x 36w x 0.75d (inches); acrylic and wood on a wood frame backed canvas