Photo-based artist Stacey Tyrell presented many of her most personal photographs on Wednesday evening at Boston University’s Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground, exploring the topics of race and identity.
Approximately 50 people from both the BU community and the Boston area at large came together to listen to Tyrell speak and to see the exhibit, called “Race, Identity & Art,” that features pieces from BU students.
Tyrell presented a series of pieces organized into different phases that chronicled the emotional journey of being a black woman. She described how “the series itself is an accumulation of my experiences of being a black woman in a predominately white society.”
Her collection starts with photographs of her mother as a young woman and transitions to photographs that were taken both in Jamaica and Great Britain, where she talked about the history that is intertwined with her black heritage. One such collection of photos, entitled “Chattel,” explicitly describes this connection between England, the sugar industry and the Caribbean.
“These [photos] from Scotland and England [are] the leftovers from the sugar industry that used to be there,” Tyrell said. “[Here is] the Penny house and the Penny family was very rich and based in Liverpool. The fortunes they made helped fund their lifestyle in England so it’s fascinating to see what used to be a mansion like 250 years ago is now home to goats and birds.”
Each successive phase of her work identified a different insecurity people of different races feel from societal norms. One segment of her series of photos presented all of the skin-whitening products that she had come across. Later in her presentation, she displayed photos of herself with makeup on that transformed her into a Caucasian woman with different hair colors and wearing a variety of different outfits.
“Our whole concept of race is really based on pseudo-science that was created about 300 or 400 years ago by a German scientist who created this theory that each race evolved from a separate origin and therefore we’re different,” she said.
Ty Furman, one of the event organizers and the managing director of the BU Arts Initiative, described how events like these are important in merging people together and overcoming racism and identity issues in the United States.
“We live in a racist society and there are challenges and the more we can talk to each other, the more we can learn each other’s stories [and] the better we’ll be as people,” he said.
Several attendees said they could relate to the obstacles and insecurities that people face by being a minority race.
The art of senior Cindy Lee was featured in the exhibit. She said moving to the U.S. was a struggle and the language barrier made her feel isolated from others, but she found a link to others through art.
“I feel like art is really something that connected me to other people because at the time I couldn’t speak English fluently so the only thing I could do was draw,” the School of Hospitality Administration student said.
Nalini Basdeo, also senior in SHA, said she feels that identity can serve as a bridge between people.
“As college students we are all functioning under the same identity,” she said. “We all want to graduate with a great degree [and] get a great job, and all of our parents are funding us. We can all relate to that. I thought that was really touching that she phrased it like that because identity and expectations do weigh on you and everybody in your everyday life.”
she is doing a lot of hard work to bring their race into light ,i wish her all the best of what she is doing.