• The Title
• Looking at the work
• Relating the title to the work

Sonia Boyce has discussed her ideas behind the work at length in an interview with Emma Dexter, one of the curators at Tate Modern. Reading extracts [link to hotspots section] from this with your pupils will undoubtedly help to unpick the image, and understand Boyce's intentions in creating it. However a work will always mean different things to different people, depending on their own experience and background, and a lot can be learnt from looking at the work itself.

The Title: From Tarzan to Rambo: English Born 'Native' Considers her Relationship to the Constructed/Self Image and her Roots in Reconstruction

The title is long, and reflects the fact that behind this single work there are a large number of complex ideas - feel free to deal with as few or as many as you like, depending on the age or ability of your pupils. Similarly the discussion points below start at a more basic level and gradually lead into more complex issues - choose those which you think most relevant. The discussion points are divided into two sections, 'looking at the work' and 'relating the title to the work'

Sonia Boyce is a black artist born in England who in this work is considering herself and her self-image in relationship to her 'Roots' - her African heritage - but in terms of the way in which that image has been constructed by others. The specific point of reference here is film, and the ways in which black people have been represented in film. The work was made in 1987 - at the time the Rambo films were being made - and looks back to the Tarzan films of the 1930s and 40s.

Looking at the work.

We learn about people from the images that are presented of them in the media, in films, the news etc., but this is also the way in which we learn how to behave - learning from the example of others.

Think about the ways in which the people are represented:

Discussion points

• What expressions do the photos have?

• What emotions do you think these represent?

• How many different images of people are there? (the photos, the cartoon images of 'golliwogs', the line drawings)

• Do any of the photographic images relate to any of the drawn images in the picture? (the bottom right of each set of six is a bit like the 'natives' looking upwards, the top right like the wide staring eyes of the 'Golliwog' character)

• Why do you think there is a similarity? (is Boyce 'learning from' or 'trying to live up to' the images that are represented, for example?)

• What are the 'natives' saying? ('THE BUZZING BIRD SENDS US A VICTIM')

• What do you think a 'buzzing bird' is? (an aeroplane) What does this way of referring to a plane say about the 'natives'? ( perhaps ideas of naivety, of primitiveness, or even that they are uncivilised or in some way 'stupid')

• Is this a positive image of black people? How about the 'golliwogs'?

• How do you, or how would you feel if you were represented like this?

• Again, how many ways are there of representing people in this work? (the photographs are either plain or drawn or painted on, the 'golliwogs' are cartoon-like, as, in a different way are the line drawings).

• Is the technique related to the way we see people? (.perhaps there is more than one way of seeing people, more than one way in which they can be 'represented')

• Is a stereotype an adequate representation, or are there other ways of seeing people?

Relating the title to the work

Boyce is responding to the images of Black people in films - images she saw as a child. These 'constructed' images of black people - marginalised in their native habitat, while a white hero becomes 'King of the Jungle' - fed into her own self-image. She herself, though, is a 'native' of Great Britain, but through the portrayal of black people in films such as Tarzan - and of other 'outsiders' in more recent films such as Rambo - is made to feel an 'outsider' in her own country.

Discussion points

• Who are Tarzan and Rambo? What do they have in common? (they are both fictional characters, white, male action heroes)

• Have you seen any of the films? If you have, what are they about? (Boyce was interested in the way that Rambo is effectively Tarzan 're-packaged' - a white man in a 'foreign' or 'alien' setting who nevertheless manages to come out on top. Boyce was also concerned to convey the sense that they also dominated the natural environment - most prominent in Tarzan but true to an extent in Rambo - ie overcoming a variety of natural and man-made obstacles)

• Are they both represented in the image? (no - the line drawing of Tarzan has all but been painted out with white and pink paint, Rambo does not appear at all. He is part of the context of the work)

• Is there anything in the image which reminds you of a film, or of going to the cinema? (the proportions of the piece were designed to be the same as a wide movie screen. The repeated images might remind students of the succession of frames in a film)

• What is the most important aspect of the work visually? (responses may vary - but the face of Boyce herself is repeated most often)

• Are the photographic faces more closely related to the pale image of Tarzan, to Rambo (who is not present) or the stereotype images of black people also represented?