Performance artist Aisha Cousins asks you to ‘Take Michelle Obama to Work’ for Black Herstory Month. By taking your Michelle Obama doll to work, you can help raise this question: Why did electing the USA’s first black president require Michelle Obama to give up her career?
Inspired by Take Our Daughters to Work, this community performance art project asks you to take fabric dolls of a young Michelle Obama to work with you for Black Women’s Herstory Month (February 15 – March 15). This is the latest in series of performance art scores composed by artist Aisha Cousins to document black women’s experiences during the Obama era.
By taking your doll to work and posting about it on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram with hashtag #TakeMichelletoWork, you can draw attention to the dreams Michelle sacrificed. You can also remind people of the many other ways black women are asked to choose between what is best for themselves and what is best for the race. Just as importantly, you can encourage your co-workers to imagine a nation where our daughters are no longer asked to choose, because it is understood that helping every woman pursue her dreams is in fact what’s best for all of us. 
About the faces: The doll faces were carefully designed to reference artist Heather Hart’s Build a Brother Workshop (photo: left) which asked participants to build black male dolls as a methaphor for “building” up and nurturing real black men. Cousins learned about Build a Brother when she saw the dolls in the homes of two black women friends. The Take Michelle to Work dolls were designed with similar faces to spark conversations about how black women’s immense desire to nurture the black men in our lives can, at times, cause us to forget that nurturing our own development is just as important.
Meet the artist & get your free Michelle Obama doll:
Saturday 2/15: 1-4PM @ The Brooklyn Sweet Spot: 366 Myrtle Ave
Sunday 2/23: 1-4PM @ Polish Bar of Brooklyn: 470 Myrtle Ave
Share photos of your Michelle Obama doll’s journey: @MyrtleAveBklyn (Twitter and Instagram) @MyrtleAveBrooklyn (Facebook)
#BlackArtstory #TakeMichelletoWork
This project was commissioned for Black Artstory Month by the Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership.
