You have to recover the capacity to imagine yourself as an ideal and figure out how to project that into the world.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of envisioning your ideal self and actively working to present that identity to the world.
Kerry James Marshall's quote speaks to the transformative power of imagination and self-identity. It suggests that in order to achieve our fullest potential, we must first visualize who we aspire to be and take the necessary steps to embody that vision in our interactions with the world. This process of self-imagining is crucial in shaping not only our personal lives but also our contributions to society.
In practice
During a motivational speech about personal growth, this quote can inspire individuals to visualize their goals.
In Western Catholicism, darkness was evil. In the colonial and imperial context, dark skin was always weak, powerless, subjugated. If you see these images all the time, they become commonplace, and they no longer become a spectacular or sensational thing.
My introduction to art history was like everybody else's. You see an art history book that has works by Rembrandt and Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. Yes, these things are great. But I don't see a reflection of myself in any of these things I'm looking at.
If you think about the way we experience art, the paradigm is still Western European. If I go to the National Gallery, what am I going to see the most of? I'm not going to see a whole lot of black figures in pictures.
When you go to an art museum, the thing you're least likely to encounter is a picture of a black person. When it comes to ideas about art and about beauty, the black figure is absent.
The history of political movements in the African diaspora is that the solution to the problem is never in the hands of people who are advancing the movement. I try and operate on my own terms.
Too often, if you look back through the history of representation and you take the work of African-American artists, the work is on such a modest scale that it becomes sort of inconsequential.
Great dreamers' dreams are never fulfilled, they are always transcended.
I have learned that music helps a lot of people survive, and they want songs that can give them something - I guess you could call it hope.
We've survived by believing our life is going to get better.
I loved the idea of a girl going into a dark alley, and a monster comes, and then she just aces him. Itβs like, you want to see the tiny person suddenly take control. God, my whole career is basically about that!
I believe we have all been created for greater things than we can comprehend. The times call for great things, but great things in the noblest and most redemptive sense are predicted upon tolerance, love, respect, understanding, dignity, prayer, God.
Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you-er than you!
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