Talking White and Other Delusions.

Performance and Installation Commissioned by MICA’s Curatorial Practice
Presented at SpaceCamp
May, 2017
Baltimore, MD 

The social construction of race has real consequences. From the advent of colonialism, race has been a tool that was used to maintain wealth and power on a global scale. The videos i this installation are an abstraction of the data and infographics collected by W. E. B. Du Bois in the 19th century and distributed in 1900 during the Paris Exposition. These statistics are juxtaposed with contemporary statistics that outline the experience that Black people that live in
America today. The installation examines the alarmingly high infant mortality rates amongs black women and the affect that the prison industrial complex has on black men. Thes statistics are juxtaposed with the image of whiteness that has circulated heavily in popula media from Rachael Dozeal’s denial of her whiteness to that random person’s assertion that you aren’t black to them because they don’t see your race. A soundscape that includes readings of Claudia Rankin, James Baldwin, and Wynton Marsalis’ From the Plantation to th Penitentiary plays while the images of mass media depictions of race move across the walls of the installation.