Bayley Greenaway
Through sound and installation, I immerse the viewers in Newport, Wales, revealing the quiet impact of microaggressions and inviting them to experience these moments from within and reflect on themselves.
“The power of microaggressions lies in their invisibility to the perpetrator, who is unaware that they have engaged in behaviour that threatens and demeans the recipient of such communication”
Derald Wing Sue
The racism that often goes unacknowledged exists within microaggressions embedded in everyday life. These subtle interactions act like ‘paper cuts’, building over time and creating a lasting emotional impact. Because they are often disguised within mundane conversations and passive comments, they can be difficult to recognise or challenge.
My practice explores how everyday spaces can be transformed through projection, imagery, film and installation. Sound is used as a central element to communicate lived experiences of microaggressions, allowing voices that are often dismissed to occupy space. Familiar environments, streets, town centres and communal areas are recontextualised to reveal underlying tension, shifting them from neutral settings into sites shaped by personal social experience.
I incorporate the repeated image of flags positioned on lampposts within these environments. These symbols are considered as constant yet often unnoticed features of everyday life. Through repetition, the flags become embedded within the background. However, within the current social climate, their meaning has shifted; rather than simply representing nationalism, they can also signal exclusion and division. This reflects how familiar symbols can accumulate increasingly charged meanings over time.
By bringing the filmed urban environments of Newport, Wales into the gallery, the boundary between public and private experience is blurred. Through this, microaggressions are no longer easy to ignore, but instead confronted, creating a space for discomfort and reflection.
WARNING: Language used in the below video may cause offence.