Hungarian artist Boglarka Balogh wanted to bring awareness to African tribal women "at the brink of extinction." Her contribution: sharing a tone-deaf art project in which a portrait of her was "morphed" into African women from several tribes in Ethiopia, Kenya, and across the African continent.
This is all kinds of wrong @boglarkabalogh pic.twitter.com/UXFYmCMVL9
— nealcarter (@nealcarter) January 6, 2016
In the
original post, Balogh explained that her own "stunning portraits show how beauty varies across the globe and prove that all of us are beautiful in a different way."
How Balogh actually thought posting photos of herself in blackface would "raise awareness" about secluded cultures and black beauty (as opposed to, you know, just sharing the original photos of black beauties) was supposed to save Africa is unclear.
What
is clear is that the Internet wasn't having it -- Balogh's original post, published on
Bored Panda two weeks ago, was inundated with comments from people calling her out for using blackface and cultural appropriation.
On Wednesday, Balogh updated the post with something vaguely resembling an apology, writing:
Since I had no intentions to offend anyone and yet I’m not able to answer to all of you, I’ve decided to delete my post. My intention was 100% pure with this tribal art, being a human right lawyer and journalist who knows pretty much about racism and similar issues, I have never imagined that my work will annoy so many people and that I will have to explain myself. And sure, I will not do that. Keep calm and love every human.
However pure Balogh's intentions were, her explanation behind this project is just as perplexing as the project itself. Word of advice: blackface is pretty much
never an option.
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