“Madonna”, is a cinematographic photo series that follows the story of two young adults, Madonna and Kiddo, and explores three major institutions in our society that were supposedly put in place to help us function as a union - education, capitalism, and religion - but sometimes miss the mark. Throughout their adventures, the introspective and intellectual Madonna, played by Adonnica McKenzie, assists Kiddo, played by Antoine Manning, in opening his eyes to reality and learning more about himself and the way the world as we know it to work. I am capturing these images on 35mm film, stylized as cinematic stills accompanied by yellow, sans serif subtitles. I decided to approach these topics because as a young adult, I, like many others, have experienced the education system, capitalism, and religion in some capacity, and also remember the point of awareness when each of them became less “normalized” for me. I remember the point in which school did not feel as effective to me as it should have, the consciousness of corruption of our financial system, and understanding of the manipulation of religion, specifically towards oppressed groups looking for any sense of faith to help them through hardship. In this series, I am opening a dialogue about how these systems can improve to help people instead of oppress them.
