Proposal Title
Connecting to disconnection: an arts-based inquiry on whiteness and its legacy
Abstract
This proposal involves artworks created in the context of an arts-based inquiry under a faculty development grant this year. The inquiry centers around the legacy of white skin privilege in the artist/author’s personal and familial history, and in the wider context of our racialized society.
The artworks to be presented will be drawn from a collection of twelve 16” x 16” multi-media works. These recent works were deeply informed by regular conversations with two people: Dr. Liza Talusan, a local educator, diversity trainer and organizational consultant who has worked with me as a professional coaching client; and my friend Ani Jamgyal, an American Tibetan Buddhist nun living in New Mexico. These two people-- one mentor of color and one white-skinned fellow Buddhist and activist, have continually called me into conversation: my connection to them is what has supported me in beginning to carve a clearer path through my own implicit racism. Their care illuminates the path forward.
There will be a brief artist’s talk, and a conversation with a guest discussant, followed by an open discussion. It is my hope to reflect with audience members regarding artistic, embodied, and especially relational processes as pathways for understanding, acknowledging and perhaps reducing the harm caused by implicit racism, which continues to promote self-protection and separation.
Start Date
27-3-2019 11:00 AM
End Date
27-3-2019 11:50 AM
Room Number
U-Hall 3-103
Presentation Type
Installation
Disciplines
Art Practice | Multicultural Psychology | Other Psychology | Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies | Social Psychology
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Connecting to disconnection: an arts-based inquiry on whiteness and its legacy
This proposal involves artworks created in the context of an arts-based inquiry under a faculty development grant this year. The inquiry centers around the legacy of white skin privilege in the artist/author’s personal and familial history, and in the wider context of our racialized society.
The artworks to be presented will be drawn from a collection of twelve 16” x 16” multi-media works. These recent works were deeply informed by regular conversations with two people: Dr. Liza Talusan, a local educator, diversity trainer and organizational consultant who has worked with me as a professional coaching client; and my friend Ani Jamgyal, an American Tibetan Buddhist nun living in New Mexico. These two people-- one mentor of color and one white-skinned fellow Buddhist and activist, have continually called me into conversation: my connection to them is what has supported me in beginning to carve a clearer path through my own implicit racism. Their care illuminates the path forward.
There will be a brief artist’s talk, and a conversation with a guest discussant, followed by an open discussion. It is my hope to reflect with audience members regarding artistic, embodied, and especially relational processes as pathways for understanding, acknowledging and perhaps reducing the harm caused by implicit racism, which continues to promote self-protection and separation.
