Dayana Ruiz – Multi-Disciplinary Artist
For emerging artists such as myself using social media is a key factor to getting our work recognized by different groups of individuals that otherwise wouldn’t be possible to reach. For many established artists the algorithm works in their favor and their work is allowed to continue to be viewed. With the recent changes in the algorithm from the media giant Instagram it has targeted groups such as women, minorities and members of the LBGTQ+ community.
This brings to question not the algorithm itself but its creators? And why does it seem that it favors content that is favorable amongst white males and leaves out other voices from being heard. How come a photo of a topless female in a nonsexual pose is banned but photos of women being objectified are ok to continue to exist? Is the patriarchy somehow behind the algorithm? And how can we begin to change what is accepted in a public domain?
In response to the biased shown by Instagram and Facebook toward topless/breast-feeding women and to challenge the social taboo over women’s nipples in society I created the concept Breast Shirt. In order to desexualize and normalize women’s nipples as shirtless men became normalized during the last 1930. By publicly wearing a tee shirt with a printed image of one’s breasts, giving autonomy over ones body and helping to empower all genders to silently protest these unfair double standards that are embedded in our society.
The simple act of wearing Breast Shirt in public areas creates an interactive component that ties into protest art against the biases targeting women for simply being human. According to the community guidelines images demonstrating a protest are allowed however mostly all Breast Shirt posts are taken down within seconds. Often I would repost the image again, only to have it taken down again and again, after several attempts the only way a t-shirt with boobs on it is allowed is by covering the nipple the same way a full nude female would be allowed on the social media site if that tiny area of skin is covered. As a reaction to the fact that a female nipple is so obscene I repost the image with the middle finger emoji covering the nipple as a statement showing that IG would rather see me flip them off which should be more offense to viewer then seeing my human nipple on their platform.
