Colorism Series
Project Statement:
Colorism, a term coined by Alice Walker in 1982, is the dependence of social status on skin color alone. In order for a form of discrimination to be considered colorism, differential treatment must not result from racial categorization, but from the social values associated with skin color. Having experienced this personally growing up in India, I have chosen to create a series of images that calls attention to not the differences amongst people but their similarities. The images for this series are comprised of actual scans of skin from various family members that reveals the complexity and non-homogenous relationship between being Indian and skin color. Utilizing “loaded or charged” abstraction, I hope to convey the beauty that can be found in many colors of skin and that prejudice based on skin color should be overcome in the collective psyche of culture.