Mixed Race Studies

Art Presentation and Discussion on Creative Practices

University of Maine Museum of Art
40 Harlow Street
Bangor, Maine 04401
Wednesday, 2017-04-26 @13:00-14:00 EDT (Local Time)

On Wednesday, April 26 at 1 p.m., University of Maine Intermedia MFA students Alicia Champlin and Eleanor Kipping will present their work and discuss creative practices at University of Maine Museum of Art.

Admission is free. Audiences are welcome to bring their own lunch.

Alicia Champlin will discuss her recent performance installation, “MOTIVE,” in the context of a research-based experimental practice. The performance, which took place in December 2016, was intended to spark questions about the relationships between media and maker, between language and listener, and between truth and metaphor. Instead, like many experiments, the work led to some unexpected outcomes, but rather than discounting the effort as a failure, Alicia will share some of the resulting insights that continue to move her practice forward into the unknown.

Eleanor Kipping is a second year MFA student. Her work explores the contemporary black female experience as ‘other’ in America in light of identity, hair politics, colorism and racial passing. She draws heavily on popular culture, and personal, historical and political narratives to drive her investigations. In her talk Coming of Race, Eleanor will share her experiences as a mixed-race female growing up in the predominantly Caucasian state of Maine. While sharing how she has come to terms with her own identity as a black and white woman, she will discuss how her creative practice and use of photography, video, performance, and installation is used as a way to continue her own explorations as well as educate and facilitate discussion surrounding topics of identity…

The Intermedia MFA program is a creative studio-centered degree on the hybrid nature of contemporary art. The MFA focuses on the intersection of creative practice arts with other disciplines and areas of interest, technology, and social praxis to model a new direction and approach to teaching and learning in the creative fields. For more information, visit www.intermediamfa.org.

For more information, click here.

‘The Bling Ring’ Actress Katie Chang Finds Drive In Activism and Identity

NBC News
2017-04-20

Tiffany Hu

Katie Chang, is currently a senior at Northwestern. Her second movie is scheduled to debut on April 14. Mia Zanzucchi / Courtesy of Katie Chang

Katie Chang isn’t taking her last year of college easy.

The 21-year-old actress is spending her last semester at Northwestern University taking classes on making her own web series and curating film festivals. She’s also writing and producing a number of plays on campus. During her breaks, she auditions and films.

But while she plays one of the eponymous “outcasts,” Chang is quick to say her character isn’t a stereotype.

“I was up for a different role originally,” she told NBC News. “The girl they had playing the role that I ended up playing was white, tall, and blonde — so it was more of which actor fit best with which role.”…

…A multiracial actress, Chang has considered changing her last name in an attempt to land more roles. But when her first film, “The Bling Ring” directed by Sofia Coppola, came out in 2013, she decided against it. While she noted that some casting directors aren’t looking to cast “Katie Chang as a lead actress” in teen-focused romantic comedies, she said her decision not to use a stage name has pushed her to work harder…

Read the entire article here.

But Still, Like Air, I’ll Rise

The Lark
New York, New York
2017-04-18

Velina Hasu Houston

This piece is part of a blog salon, curated by Caridad Svich, called “Stages of Resistance.” The series welcomes reflections on themes related to making work for live performance in political and aesthetic resistance to forms and systems that oppress human rights and censor or severely limit freedom of expression. We are in increasingly hostile, volatile times around the world, and this salon hopes to serve as a space for considered, thoughtful, polemical articulations of practice and theory on the subject of resistance, the multiple meanings of political art, and the ways in which progressive, wholistic cultural change may be instigated through artworks. Stay tuned for more articles and reflections in this series throughout March and April 2017!

Don’t write about people of color.

Don’t blend Eastern and Western theater aesthetics.

These were things that were said to me when I began making art for the stage.

The inspirations for the art I wanted to make often included immigrants, people of color, and globally blended theater aesthetics. Did that mean I needed to learn to be an excellent secretary, like many of my white teachers in Junction City, Kansas, told me? No.

For someone who is Japanese, African American, Native American Indian, and Cuban, life is always political. Even amid this complexity, people of color come from mono-ethnic perspectives and do not understand a multiethnic perspective such as mine. To exist in almost any space creates challenges, but the making of art that resists those challenges allows me to liberate myself from the categorical cages into which many feel they must place me. Art, therefore, is an avenue to freedom…

Read the entire article here.

‘Get Out’ Is Now The Highest Grossing Film Domestically By A Black Director (But Not For Long)

Shadow And Act: On Film, Television and Web Content of Africa and Its Diaspora
2017-04-11

Sergio Mims

Jordan Peel – Get Out

It’s official! Jordan Peele’s “Get Out” is now the highest domestic grossing film directed a black filmmaker. With $163.3 million so far domestically ($177 million total worldwide), the film beats the previous highest grossing film by a black director domestically, F. Gary Gray’s “Straight Outta Compton”, which grossed $162.8 million, and another $40.4 million overseas at the end of its theatrical run. But “Get Out” is far from done, as it has yet to open in some of the biggest foreign markets, including European territories like France, Spain and Scandinavia, as well as across South America, so it could eventually do very well and match or even top “Compton’s” overseas numbers…

Read the entire article here.

‘We’re the geeks, the prostitutes’: Asian American actors on Hollywood’s barriers

The Guardian
2017-04-11

Sam Levin

Clockwise from top left: Scarlett Johansson in Ghost in the Shell; Pun Bandhu; Matt Damon in Great Wall; Atsuko Okatsuka. Composite: Alamy / Universal Pictures / Courtesy of Pun Bandhu / Courtesy of Atsuko Okatsuka

Films like Ghost in the Shell have fueled debate over whitewashing, while roles are few for Asian Americans – and when they are wanted, it’s often to play offensive stereotypes

Pun Bandhu’s training at the prestigious Yale School of Drama didn’t help much with the skill he needed for so many auditions after graduation – the “Asian accent”.

The Thai American actor – who has appeared in a wide range of TV shows and films over the last 15 years – said he was once told that an accent he used for a Thai character, modeled after his parents, was not working for an “American ear”. Instead, the director went with a Chinese accent.

While much of the recent debate around Asian representation in Hollywood has centered on whitewashing – when white actors are cast to tell Asian stories – working actors said a lack of opportunity was only one part of the problem. Asian American actors said they rarely, if ever, got auditions for leading roles, and when they did get parts, they were frequently secondary to the plot or portrayed offensive tropes…

…“We’re so desperate for opportunities,” said Kanoa Goo, a mixed-race actor who is Chinese, Hawaiian and white. “Often it’s pretty one-dimensional. It’s the tech computer analyst who doesn’t have much to say. His role is really just in service of the leads.”…

Read the entire article here.

Doctor Who’s Pearl Mackie: ‘When I was little there weren’t many people like me on TV’

The Guardian
2017-04-09

Sarah Hughes

Pearl Mackie: ‘This is by far the biggest thing I have ever done, which is amazing.’ Pearl wears top £26 urbanoutfitters.com. Make-up by Linda Johansson at One Represents using YSL Beauty. Hair by Bianca Simone Scott using Mizani. Fashion assistant Bemi Shaw. Photograph: Andrew Woffinden for the Observer

Meet Doctor Who’s new companion, Pearl Mackie. She tells Sarah Hughes why it’s so important to have diverse actors on TV, and how her friends are making sure her feet stay on the ground

The moment when Pearl Mackie understood just how big her new role as Doctor Who’s latest companion was came early in filming. “There was a scene in episode three that was so awesome – in the sense that I was awestruck by the scale of the set – that it was really humbling. I stood there looking at it, thinking, ‘Oh. Wow. This is a very big show.’ When you see it from the inside, that’s when you realise how massive it is.”

She’s not wrong — Doctor Who is, as 29-year-old Mackie puts it, “properly, globally huge”. The most successful science fiction series in television history, this tale of a history-haunted time lord and his adventures across the universe with various sidekicks has progressed far beyond its days as children’s tea-time entertainment. In 2013 the 50th anniversary special broke viewing records around the world after being aired in 94 countries simultaneously while the current Doctor, Peter Capaldi, began his stint by undertaking a rock star-style world tour with then companion Jenna Coleman, taking in Cardiff, London, Seoul, Sydney, New York, Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro. At each stop they were greeted by queues of fans, many of them in costume. There were Weeping Angels and Daleks, Cybermen and companions, and a whole host of Doctors, from every stage of this very British institution’s lengthy career…

…She spent much of her own childhood searching for a similar jolt of recognition. “When Alicia Keys came out that was a big thing for me because she was mixed race as well,” she says. “There were a lot of people I liked on screen, like Judi Dench, she’s wicked, but that’s very different to having someone where you think, ‘She looks like me, maybe I could do that.’”…

Read the entire article here.

Skin Color and Politics Focus of Dan T. Blue Symposium

North Carolina Central University
Durham, North Carolina
2017-04-03

Yaba Blay

North Carolina Central University (NCCU)’s 2017 Dan T. Blue Symposium in Political Science will take place April 10-13 with a focus on “The Politics of Skin Color.”

The conference is hosted by Yaba Blay, Ph.D., holder of the Dan T. Blue Endowed Chair at NCCU. Blay is a nationally recognized researcher and ethnographer who uses personal and social narratives to explore issues of race, class and culture. All events during the symposium are free and open to the public.

“Light skin versus dark skin: Which is more socially advantageous? Regarded as more beautiful? Considered more Black? Treated more favorably by the law?” Blay asks. “These are not as much questions of personal opinion as they are issues of power and politics.”

The symposium keynote event brings Blay on stage with CNN contributor and activist Michaela Angela Davis and Patrice Grell Yursik, whose online persona Afrobella is considered the godmother of brown beauty blogging, for a public conversation about colorism beginning at 6 p.m. on Thursday, April 13, at the A.E. Student Union.

Blay defines colorism as a discriminatory system of value based on skin tone that encourages people of color to opt for separation in place of unity. Photography from her 2013 book “(1)ne Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race,” will be on display April 10-13 in a pop-up exhibit at the NCCU Museum of Art, with an opening reception Tuesday, April 11, from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.  Blay will present a lecture on her work immediately following the reception in the Hubbard-Totten Building Auditorium…

Read the entire article here.

“Blaxicans of LA” challenges racial binaries and unpacks the complexities of intersectional identity

The Occidental Weekly
Los Angeles, California
2017-04-04

Mallory Leeper

Photograph by Walter Thompson-Hernández

Walter Thompson-Hernández, multimedia journalist and current doctoral student at UCLA, visited Occidental College Monday, March 27 to discuss his research, which aims to bridge the gap between academia and photography and popular culture. Thompson-Hernandez’s lecture explored the historical framework of brown and black relations including anti-black sentiments within the Latinx community. Thompson-Hernández sought to highlight the experiences of Angelenos facing issues of racial classification and assumed singular ethnic identity.

The Latino/a & Latin American Studies department at Occidental College and the Institute for the Study of Los Angeles (ISLA) co-sponsored the Blaxicans of LA lecture in Fowler 202. As a part of their spring speaker series, Professor Raul Villa, department chair, explained that the event is a part of an educational and promotional campaign to bring awareness about the stdy of Latinxs across the hemisphere to Occidental. According to Villa, Latinx representation is an important component in a global education.

Three years ago, Thompson-Hernández started the Instagram page Blaxicans of LA to address the complexity of intersectional experiences — especially those of “Blaxican,” a combination of African and Mexican heritage…

Read the entire article here.

How I Got Over: ‘One Drop of Love’ Performance and Conversation

The Greene Space
44 Charlton Street (corner of Varick Street), New York, New York
Thursday, 2017-04-06, 19:00 EDT (Local Time)

One Drop of Love (Photo by David Scarcliff)

Join us for a special presentation of “One Drop of Love,” a multimedia solo performance that explores the intersections of race, class and gender in search of truth, justice and love.

Written and performed by Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni, the interactive show parallels the history of changing demographics in the U.S. with DiGiovanni’s own family history, traveling from the 1700s to the present.

The ultimate goal of the performance is to encourage the discussion of race and racism openly and critically, and to commit to making the world more liberated for all.

WNYC editor Rebecca Carroll hosts a post-performance conversation with DiGiovanni as part of The Greene Space’s ongoing How I Got Over series.

For more information, click here.

Looking at Okinawa: Race, Gender, Nation

2017 UC Berkeley Graduate Student Conference: On Belonging: Gender, Sexuality and Identity in Japan
University of California, Berkeley
Moffitt Undergraduate Library
340 (BCMN Commons Seminar Room)
Berkeley, California
2017-04-09, 10:00-16:00 PDT (Local Time)

Ishikawa Mao, Photographer

Wendy Matsumura, Assistant Professor of Professor
University of California, San Diego

Annmaria Shimabuku, Assistant Professor of East Asian Studies
New York University

This is a one-day event being held in order to create a dialogue on issues of race and gender in the study of Okinawa, and to contemplate the relationship between the study of Japan and the study of Okinawa.

We will initiate this dialogue with a lecture by photographer Ishikawa Mao, whose work explores the complex relationships of gender, race, and national identity in Okinawa and Japan. Her works have included including candid photographs of African American servicemen and their Okinawan and Japanese wives and girlfriends in Okinawa in the 1970s; and portraits of Japanese and Okinawan people with the national flag of Japan, interacting with it in various ways to demonstrate their complicated and often troubled relationship with the nation of Japan. Ishikawa is to give a slide show and talk about her work, focussing on her photographs of African American servicemen.

In the afternoon, we will hold a discussion between scholars, students, and members of the public, to be led by Professor Wendy Matsumura (UCSD) and Professor Annmaria Shimabuku (NYU), who, from the fields of cultural studies, sociology, and history, have been engaged in thinking about the role of Okinawan studies and its place in Japanese studies more generally. We will discuss what it means to study Okinawa in the American academy, and, drawing on Ishikawa’s work, we will examine the complicated role of race and gender in Japanese studies and Okinawan studies.

Sponsored by: Center for Japanese Studies (CJS), Townsend Center for the Humanities, Department of African American Studies, Asian American Studies, Department of Ethnic Studies, Department of Gender and Women’s Studies, Center for Race and Gender, and Department of East Asian Languages & Cultures

For more information, click here.