Karen Navarro

When the confinement started in March 2020 in the U.S. my portraiture work was completely interrupted. Soon after the socio-political situation in the U.S. took a turn over the death of George Floyd who was brutally murdered at the hands of the police. This situation made me shift during this period in the way I work. Therefore I decided to start collecting images of skin tones via an open call on Instagram to create work. My curiosity for skin tones steadily and expansively grew since I first moved to the U.S. Before migrating to the United States my skin color, ethnicity, and/or race were not as relevant to me nor the people around me. I became more aware of this when I had to fill for the first time a migration form and then the Census.

"Shine America 2043" is a direct interpretation of the 2011 U.S Census data prediction. Which states that all the non-white groups combined will be the majority by 2043; surpassing the white population in numbers and making up more than half of the U.S. population. Mirroring this data I’ve created this color study composed of 61% of darker skin complexion tones and 39% of pale skin tones. Each square represents the skin tone of a person who lives in the United States. Additionally, each square has the first name imprinted of the participant who submitted the image via the open call. The work aims to show the diversity of the United States, be a positive message of hope, and question the actual space that is given to people of color in society.