what’s ur handle?

Curated by Angelica Fuentes

Artists: Emma Stern, Fabiola Larios, Emily Mulenga, Lena Chen, Tabita Rezaire

April 2021 

what’s ur handle? explores online avatars as a tool of resistance. Figurative oil painter Emma Stern’s sexually empowered subjects are extended self-portraits who exercise liberation in the form of an avatar translated to paint. Interdisciplinary media artist Fabiola Larios uses social media selfie filters to declare autonomy over one’s own internet persona. Multimedia artist Emily Mulenga presents Bunniana, an overtly sexualized human-bunny avatar used to navigate digital spaces idealizing femininity. Interdisciplinary artist Lena Chen presents the Internet from the perspective of sex workers who navigate a digital environment full of harassment, discrimination and manipulation. Health-tech-politics practitioner and artist Tabita Rezaire’s video work celebrates spiritual knowledges and the empowerment of Black femmes as a means of opposing discrimination and stereotyping online. These artists create alternate personas, avatars and sometimes entire worlds to combat the way female bodies are valued in digital realms, and how female representations affect gender performativity in real life.