ABSTRACT
Visual and cultural identities embody ways of being that oppress and liberate. Via multimodal ethnographic case studies involving conversations, focus groups, and artmaking, grade 11 art students in Canada – Ana, Zi, and Leona – engage in resistance, appreciation, and appropriation of Asian and Western beauty ideals, shaped by material and popular culture, social media, and celebrity influencers. Ana celebrated and expressed her own South Korean design aesthetic, while local Canadian student Leona appropriated South Korean and K-Pop values and clothing, and international Chinese student Zi occupied a space of cultural dissonance and some resistance, westernizing her appearance. Most adolescents conform to heteronormative neoliberal beauty ideals and identity constructs. The development of critical self-awareness of visual and cultural identities and impression management as ontological, corporatized, gendered, classed, enculturated, and evolving is key. Students seek to bear witness to their own and others’ lives located in place and time; they seek belonging, recognition, and validation.
