This project is a short visual story of turning the narrative around about the dollar being held more valuable than a Black person. We've seen this narrative since the time of slavery and even still today. The narrative that compares us against the dollar is saying that we are worthless to it, that money is more important than our own lives, Black lives. 

It’s almost everyday we have to fight for our lives and deem ourselves more than just a piece of paper, reparation is more than the paper, so much more; not saying that if the white man gives us a dollar we won’t take it, but we’re higher forms of human beings, we are spiritual creatures.

It’s a statement of empowerment, of taking back control of our story and need for change and social justice.

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In the order of this series the model starts off by lying on the floor with the dollar held high above them. The visual is showing us, Black people at the bottom of the triangle and the dollar at the top of the triangle. By the second part of the series, the model is sitting up which shows a shift in the narration, they are still underneath the dollar, but are not longer at the bottom. They are starting to rise. Then, by the third image in this series, the model is fully standing up with the dollar now torn in between them and no longer at the top pf the triangle. Also, the model is almost as tall as the triangle and directly parallel to it showing that with the complete shift of narrative, Black lives being held at their true value means building a different structure outside of the one we are liberated from.

I used the triangle because the triangle is a symbol of power and hierarchy and wanted it to be the center of this narrative and how I constructer the images for it to change from the model being at the complete bottom to being next to the triangular structure. 

I used a single dollar as well because it's a low value sum, yet still holds a deep meaning for this story. 

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How I edited this from the raw images that I captured of my model, Oshinofa Lakoju, is that I masked her out from certain poses that she was in and edited around her, recreated the background to be consistent throughout the triptych and structurally placed her underneath, in between and next to the triangle for my story to be more fluid.

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I chose to create this narrative because with the many different social issues happening around the world, we can't forget that Black Lives still matter.