133117- CRLT Whitaker: Skin Deep Art Installation Critical Consciousness Toward Colorism

This proposal responds to CRLT funding priorities by focusing on the discovery of innovative arts-based knowledge-building approaches. I am applying for funds to mount the five components of Skin Deep, an art installation that explores the root causes and consequences of colorism, an intra-group form of racism. Skin Deep is a mixed-media installation, video and photography, conceived from my perspective as an immigrant considered “white” in Brazil, my native country, and a “person of color” in the United States. Being genotypically and phenotypically racially mixed, the youngest of eight siblings whose skin tones vary from very light to very dark; we have experienced different aspects of colorism, from having our racial makeup questioned and compared to Caucasian physiognomy to being denied access to education and health. Therefore, in Skin Deep, I critique (1) social and legal processes that determine a person’s race; (2) the reductionist notion that human beings can be organized into racial categories; and (3) the concept of “race” as being a reductionist biosociolo gical construction.