Isn’t Pretty Enough
March 2025Commissioned by Metro54, on show during We’re Out Here (Streets of Amsterdam) and Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.
Isn't pretty enough is a poster series based on the pursuit of a Eurocentric ideal of beauty that highlights colorism, plastic surgery and the hair industry. Why is a person with lighter skin color considered more beautiful or valuable than a person with darker skin color? How did hair care for black women become a billion-dollar industry? And who benefits from it? Is it true that hair is more than a style for black women? How do Snapchat and Instagram filters affect saying “yes” to plastic surgery? Is it worth it to get a result that may not make you happy? Simply to realize that you were already beautiful.
We’re Out Here - Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
We’re Out Here
I made this poster series in the context of We’re Out Here, an ode to street guerrilla poster culture, developed by Metro54. In company of work by designers Serana Angelista, Jeanine van Berkel and Cengiz Mengüç. The poster series were on show in the streets of Amsterdam, during the Covid lockdown. Later Stedelijk Museum invited Metro54 to present the series for the first edition of POST/NO/BILLS by graphic design curator Thomas Castro.
