Seeing Me, Seeing You, Seeing Us: Ebonix’s video games activism

Danielle Udogaranya, Eden, 2023. Copyright The Sims, EA, Courtesy of the artist.

FOTO/INDUSTRIA 2023
GAME. The industry of game in photography.
Bologna, October 18, 2023 – December 8, 2023

By Irene Bernardi

Why is it important to recognize oneself within the world of video games?
Is it a matter of moving away from an uncomfortable reality or is it just another way to define existing? The content creator, DE&I games consultant,[1] and 3D artist Danielle Udogaranya aka Ebonix, answers all of these questions, creating avatars to include the Black community inside the world of video games.

Due to her content that gives space to Black people, women, and other under-included groups in the gaming sphere, Udogaranya became a diversity activist, and her work has been featured on Apple, BBC, Vice, The Verge, The Guardian and many other platforms.

Born in 1991 in London (UK) with African and Caribbean heritage, she joined her father in playing video games at a young age. While doing so, her perspective changed as she noticed more and more stereotypes related to Black culture in these games, which appeared to be mainly aimed at a male audience. The stereotypical portrait of Black individuals in video games often depicts them as Black men with curly hair, oversized sweatshirts, and baggy pants, typically cast as protagonists involved in crime, shooters, or dangerous gangs. Ebonix initiated a thoughtful reflection on countering these stereotypes, particularly by narrating stories that explore the richness of Black identity and leveraging the communicative influence of video games as a political platform.

Danielle Udogaranya, Mind Games, 2023 Copyright The Sims, EA, Courtesy of the artist.

This media mirrors the essence of one’s inner self, unveiling significant aspects of one’s character through the process of gameplay. Some individuals immerse themselves in gaming to escape reality, while others are fueled by the excitement of competition. Nevertheless, the most thrilling aspect of games is the ability to achieve extraordinary feats beyond the bounds of reality. This becomes even more impactful when the game allows you to create a character with your skin tone and hairstyle, offering a personalized and inclusive experience.

These two different topics are crucial to Udogaranya’s work in 2015, after the release of the popular simulation game The Sims 4. This type of game creates the possibility of entering a parallel world where your character lives a real-life experience, with the objective of staying healthy, working, and having social relationships.

Danielle Udogaranya, Breakthrough, 2023 Copyright The Sims, EA, Courtesy of the artist.

The artist noticed how once again, Black people do not have the option of creating their own avatar within the game, except by choosing curly hair and a single skin colour. In 2017, she started to practice 3D modelling to create different types of avatars with multiple choices of skin and hair, taking inspiration from graphic design to the shining world of art, including Jean Michael-Basquiat and Cameroonian graphic artist Maxime Manga. Udogaranya focuses particularly on the creation of the hair as it is a fundamental part of Black culture, despite being completely absent in the creation of the simmers[2].

“I want developers to think of us as works of art when they want to insert us in games.”[3]

Her work is not a simple series of portraits of Black people but a political act: activism and inclusivity extend beyond the confines of the physical world and find resonance in digital realms, where enduring battles unfold.

Installation view Seeing me, Seeing you, Seeing us, FOTO/INDUSTRIA 2023, Fondazione del Monte di Bologna e Ravenna,photo by Luca Capuano, courtesy of Fondazione MAST, 2023.

In 2020 the developers of The Sims accepted Udogaranya’s criticism and added more than 100 shades and hairstyles to the game, an important step in this industry. Often, there is an ignorance on the part of white developers regarding the profound significance of hair in Black culture. It is not a mere stylistic choice, but a heated political topic rooted in the legacy of chattel slavery.[4] The ongoing transformative wave goes beyond the confines of the gaming industry, encompassing a broader societal shift. Ebonix champions for heightened representation, advocating for greater inclusion of Black individuals in influential roles such as writers, artists, directors, producers, and beyond. This aims to secure and amplify the voices of the Black community in game life and beyond because the universe illustrated by Udogaranya materializes not only on computer screens, tablets, and cell phones but in tangible reality.[5]

Danielle Udogaranya. Black Lives Matter Rally Pack (poseback) made for the simblr Black Lives Matter Rally organised by Circasim and Simflux, 2020, Credits to Marigold, Youn-zoey and Sincerelyasimmer.

During COVID-19, protestors found new ways to express themselves through video games; Ebonix organized a Black Lives Matter rally in The Sims where more than 200 players participated in this event with t-shirts including the slogan of BLM. She says, “The community response was astounding. It felt like a real turning point.”[6]
The significance of this action extends beyond the simple act of “playing a game.” The rally organized within The Sims serves as a virtual representation of reality, emphasizing that the value of Black lives matters both in the real world and the virtual realm.

Danielle Udogaranya’s exhibition Seeing me, Seeing you, Seeing us is part of FOTO/INDUSTRIA 2023, VI Biennial of Photography on Industry and Work, promoted by Fondazione MAST, Bologna. This year, all 12 exhibitions — 11 personal and one collective, set up in 10 locations in the city centre and Fondazione MAST— have the main focus on the industrial of game in photography, where “Udogaranya’s exhibition explores game as a societal tool, amplifying diversity within a world that not only redefines the core concept of identity but also elevates it as the central element of play, extending into real-life experiences.”[7]

To view more of Danielle Udogaranya’s work visit her website or Instagram.

[1] DE&I — Diversity and inclusion — is an expression that refers to programs, policies and processes that support different groups of people within the same organisation. Promotes equal representation for people of different ethnicities, religions, genders, and sexual orientations.

[2] Typical Sims avatar, characterised by an emerald prism on the head.

[3] Danielle Udogaranya, Seeing me, Seeing you, Seeing us, www.fotoindustria.it

[4] Allisa James, Black hair and black bodies in gaming, 28.12.2022, www.techradar.com

[5] Francesco Zanot, GAME. FOTO/INDUSTRIA – VI Biennal of  Photography on industry and work, Fondazione MAST, 2023, Bologna, pp. 186-187

[6] Schofield Daisy, Black Lives Matter meets Animal Crossing: how protesters take their activism into video games, 7.08.2020, http://www.theguardian.com.

[7] Francesco Zanot, GAME. FOTO/INDUSTRIA – VI Biennal of  Photography on industry and work , Fondazione MAST, 2023, Bologna, pp. 20-21

Velvet Terrorism: A Story by Pussy Riot’s Russia

Punk Prayer, Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, 2012, courtesy of the artists.

November 24th to January 29th, 2023

Kling&Bang

By Irene Bernardi

Velvet Terrorism is the first exhibition by the Russian feminist performance art group Pussy Riot. The exhibition at Kling&Bang in Reykjavik, Iceland is curated by Dorothee Kirch, Ragnars Kjartanssonar, and Ingibjargar Sigurjónsdóttur. Velvet Terrorism narrates the history of Russian totalitarianism through the memories of Maria (Masha) Alyokhina, a founding member of the group since its first performance back in 2011. With their mix of music, art, and rebellion, Pussy Riot became an icon of the opposition against Russian President Vladimir Putin and his oppressive policies from his second election in 2012 to the Ukraine War in 2022. 

Velvet Terrorism – Pussy Riot’s Russia, Kling&Bang, Installation view, photo by Irene Bernardi.

The exhibition displays itself as a massive punk-rock journal, full of pictures, writings, colorful duct tape, and video installations. In a sparkling font, the exhibit’s title opens the door to the first video, an original work by Icelandic artist and curator Ragnars Kjartanssonar. The artist films a group member while she urinates over a blowup of Putin. Her face is hidden under the iconic ski mask, the eyes are focused on the camera with an unmoved and resolute look. This act of defiance ends with the performer kicking Putin’s picture, which falls on the ground surrounded by splashes of urine. 

Velvet Terrorism – Pussy Riot’s Russia, Kling&Bang, Installation view, photo by Irene Bernardi.

Kjartanssonar’s work welcomes the audience, who gets thrown into a creative chaos of pictures and screens that saturates the room up to the ceiling. The art pieces chronologically tell the story of Pussy Riot. Not only does it show their actions and performances, but it reports the media’s lies about the arrest of Masha and Lucy Shtein – an activist and Masha’s partner – following the 2012 performance of the song Punk Prayer in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. Masha paid for this performance with a two-year sentence in a penal colony in the Ural Mountains, more than 1000 km away from Moscow. The performance also gives the exhibition its title, since “Velvet Terrorism” is the moniker that Bishop Tikhon Shevkunov, considered to be Vladimir Putin’s spiritual confidant, used to address it. 

Policeman enters the Game, Moscow’s Final World Cup, 2018, courtesy of the artists.

Once Alyokhina and Shtein were released, protests and performances didn’t stop—on display the visitors can see the most iconic performances like Policemen Enters the Game, when activists demanded the stop of police abuses and the release of every political prisoner by invading the playing field during the World Cup final in 2018. Another one is the “homage” paid to President Putin for his sixty-eighth birthday when Pussy Riot placed rainbow flags over five government buildings in Moscow. Many other actions and demonstrations led Alyokhina to serve house arrest until April 2022. In protest of the declaration of war against Ukraine, Masha cut off her electronic wristband. This demonstration cost her a new sentence for having broken the terms of probation which started in to which she was obliged September 2021. 

Rainbow flags, Moscow’s Culture Ministry building, 2020, courtesy of the artists.

In the last room of the exhibition, two videos ironically show the ankle guards as if they were in the window of a jewelry store. The exhibition seems to end there, until a security guard tells the visitors they need to leave their belongings and proceed through a cramped little room where the Russian national anthem is played at full volume. 

Once the visitor leaves this temporary prison, they return to the exhibition’s entrance by going through a tunnel where pictures and videos of the latest Pussy Riot performances are shown all over the walls. At the entrance, the visitor learns about the presence of many surveillance cameras all over the exhibition, a clear allusion to the oppressive media encirclement in Putin’s regime. 

The exhibition, which launched on November 24th and will last until January 29th, 2023, originated from the collaboration between Ragnars Kjartanssonar and Maria Alyokhina. The artist helped the activist leave Russia after her latest sentence and Alyokhina started a European tour with the Pussy Riot members to promote her book Riot Days, published in 2017.

Velvet Terrorism is undoubtedly a complex retrospective. It aims to show the group’s strength and its desire to emerge and state the truth. The exhibition uses an irreverent punk attitude by turning the objects that characterize a violent dictatorship into artistic subjects. Whether it is a prison, a whip, a surveillance camera, or a Putin image, Pussy Riot can use it to mock the regime and regain power and freedom in their hands. 

Check out Velvet Terrorism: Pussy Riot’s Russia at Kling&Bang in Reykjavík, now extended until January 29th, 2023.