Assembling Historically Provocative Artwork and (E)Merging Racial Perceptions

• In Event: 51.081 - Sheraton Roundtable Session Nine - Grand Centre
  In Roundtable Session: 51.081-7 - Critical Issues on Social Justice, Whiteness, Oppression, and Race

Abstract

This paper reports on the use of artwork historically provocative artwork created by Titus Kaphar and graduate students learning about leading with socio-political conscious about racism. The authors provided 17 students with a series of prompts, based on critical race theory and critical art analysis, to instigate reflection and dialogue. Students responded artistically to a painting by Kaphar by painting on a canvas. The authors organized their artwork into a collage of re-presentations of race/ism and whiten(ness) supremacy and examined it using assemblage theory, which revealed the inter/intra-change among the components of the process and expressions of colors of power and property, un/veilings of power and privilege, and legacies of power constituting racism, sexism, and nationalism.

Authors

• Bretton A. Varga, University of South Florida - Tampa

• Vonzell Agosto, University of South Florida