Wieden+Kennedy’s magazine Motherland launches the Skin issue and it’s very colourful
The eleventh issue of Motherland (a quarterly magazine on contemporary and emerging Indian cultures) <!– /* Font Definitions */@font-face {font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; mso-font-charset:78; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:1 0 16778247 0 131072 0;}@font-face {font-family:Calibri; panose-1:0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-alt:Arial; mso-font-charset:77; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-format:other; mso-font-pitch:auto; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}@font-face {font-family:Cambria; panose-1:0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-alt:"Times New Roman"; mso-font-charset:77; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-format:other; mso-font-pitch:auto; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;}strong {mso-bidi-font-weight:bold;}@page Section1 {size:612.0pt 792.0pt; margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt; mso-header-margin:36.0pt; mso-footer-margin:36.0pt; mso-paper-source:0;}div.Section1 {page:Section1;sits close to the bone, touching on the border between the world and ourselves: Skin.
It is clothed, painted, pierced and inked, but it is also the envelope in which our pain, pleasure, and identity resides, an expanse that is far from a blank canvas, but is instead subject to shifting social definitions of health, or beauty, or regarded for external identity markers, like colour.
In India the skin colour bias is so deeply ingrained into our formative years that it spills into personal histories, quietly shaping daily rituals. And it is these rituals around which this issue circles, looking at the social commentaries that can be derived from any idea of beauty and a conflicted relationship with one’s own skin.
Debuting in this edition is V Sunil’s Dark & Lovely project; the Executive Creative Director at Wieden+Kennedy Delhi rewrites the notion of a “black list” into a chronicle of achievement. Part art-project and part call-to-arms, Dark & Lovely addresses this colour complex through a series of portraits that form a springboard for an ongoing, unfolding art project. The project will culminate into a rich media exhibition later this year.
Also featured is Berlin-based photographer Andreas Deffner’s remarkable series of portraits which take a closer look at albinism in India. Michael Edison Hayden looks at Mumbai’s issues with racial discrimination, and at the Africans who travel to that city for business, for whom tangles with police are now structured into their daily lives, while elsewhere an essay by Kerry Harwin throws up the other side of white privilege in India, alienation.
Aruni Kashyap revisits a childhood tale, the bittersweet tale of Koli Bou, whose own self-loathing is rivaled only by her loathing for others with similarly hued complexions, and Himanshu Bhagat allows us a glimpse into the world of the artist Mithu Sen, whose works are the texture of conflict. We’re also delighted to include the work of Ben V and Aindri Chakraborty, whose fictional graphic story looks at what it means to be a quarter Indian, with skin that provokes one familiar refrain: “Oh, but you don’t look Indian?