This part of my website is to archive images and zines published between roughly 2014 and early 2019, prior to my recognition that the way the blobs’ mouths were rendered was evocative of the Sambo cartoon, and therefore harmful and antiblack.
Please do not circulate these without including the above contextual information.
Below is my original apology from 08/03/19:
Dear friends of blobs,
I want to apologize for a racist connotation within my work. A friend of the project let me know that the way the blobs’ mouths are drawn is reminiscent of the Sambo cartoon, and therefore anti-black. I now see, and agree with this feedback. I am so sorry to everyone who has been exposed to and/or harmed by this parallel.
The blobs’ mouths will no longer be drawn this way, and I will no longer be selling or circulating any of the existing digital or physical works where the blobs have that feature. I have archived the contents of this instagram account so that people are not exposed to these images unwittingly. They are now posted within a page on my website alongside contextual information, as well as a request not to circulate them further unless that contextual material is included.
I plan to continue to interrogate the blobs project and practice. My hope is that the blobs will be able to return in a new form, and continue to seek to celebrate uncertainty and play, without this element rooted in racist tropes.
With gratitude and commitment,
Hannah
