Who Are You Here To See?

Mona Chalabi is a New York-based data journalist and illustrator. Her visualisations shed light on otherwise faceless statistics, making her a popular commentator on contemporary politics.

Taking statistical reports that highlight various global inequalities – such as the political crisis in Venezuela, or how minorities are more affected by air pollution in the United States – she visualises data through poignant illustrations.

In this work, Chalabi was influenced by a 2014 report by Tate Galleries, stating that only fifteen per cent of artists in their collection are women. She further investigated these findings by calculating what the breakdown of identities was in a US museum collection of 100 artists. Her analysis showed a similarly shocking disparity: seventy-five white would dominate.