This past summer, WGSS students Avina Mathias and Emelyn Pareja-Garcia assisted local filmmaker Mara Ahmed on her anti-colonial feminist project Return to Sender. Her film will premiere at the Cinema Arts Center in Huntington on Oct 1st, and the companion art exhibit (which Avina and Emelyn helped curate) will be on display at Huntington’s History & Decorative Art Museum from Sep 17 to Oct 15.

Return to Sender: Women of Color in Colonial Postcards & the Politics of Representation is a short, experimental film that challenges the documentary medium in unexpected ways. The film opens with three contemporary South Asian American women who recreate British colonial postcards from the early 20th century. Dressed in lavish traditional attire and jewelry and shot exquisitely in a darkened studio, the women emulate the awkward poses of the postcard women, only to subvert the colonial male gaze and acquire autonomy by choosing an action of their own. This symbolic ‘returning’ of the Orientalist gaze is layered with discussions about Eurocentric beauty standards, representations of South Asian women in media and culture, stereotypes, othering, identity and belonging. The film hopes to create community by facilitating conversations about erasure and the politics of representation. This project was supported by a NYSCA grant administered by the Huntington Arts Council.

WGSS students Avina Mathias and Emelyn Pareja-Garcia worked with Mara Ahmed this summer to assemble the catalog for the companion exhibition. You can check out the catalog online!

Avina Mathias is in her junior year at Stony Brook and is majoring in Political Science, with an interest in how data affects US elections and public policy. Last spring, she took WST 102 with graduate instructor Frankie Petronio, which expanded her understanding of social constructivism and the importance of intersectionality. Her work on the Return to Sender catalog was greatly influenced by the concepts discussed in her WST class, especially the correlations between social construction, colonization, imperialism, and gender. This project also helped her begin the process of deconstructing the colonized understanding she has of her own culture as an Indian American. She sends a huge thank you to Mara Ahmed and the WGSS department for the invaluable lessons she learned through this incredible opportunity. Be sure to read Avina’s personal essay in “Who Is the Other?” in the catalog.

Emelyn Pareja-Garcia is a senior majoring in Psychology BS and minoring in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and the current Vice President of Planned Parenthood Generation Action at Stony Brook. After graduating this December, she hopes to work in the field of psychology and eventually pursue a Master’s in Social Work degree. Her ultimate goal is to help people in minority groups find the resources they need for life to be less stressful. While working on the Return to Sender catalog and watching Mara’s earlier film A Thin Wall, Emelyn not only learned about colonial representations of women but also explored the sense of otherness and “double consciousness” that women of color, herself included, often experience. In her personal essay, “Una Chicana Por Dentro y Por Fuera,” for the catalog, she reflects on these themes and explains why she likes the word “Chicana” to describe herself because she is “neither just American nor just Mexican” but “a blend of both cultures.” Emelyn is so glad she got to work and connect with two amazing people this summer!