What Are You?
February 6th, 2006
As you might imagine, I’m a big fan of anything exploring mixed-race and multi-racial heritages. Check out news about this art exhibit:
What are you? Exhibit at SFSU (reception this thursday)
Artist Kip Fulbeck will be showing his exhibit, The Hapa Project at The Art Gallery, located on the
Terrace Level of the Cesar Chavez Student Center at San Francisco State University, Feb. 9 to March 7. http://www.sfsustudentcenter.com/artgallery/
“What are you?” is a question many multiethnic people are both resentful of and familiar with. In an effort to promote awareness and recognition of the millions of multiracial people in the country, Fulbeck has taken that question and turned it into artistic expression in his traveling exhibition.
The word hapa,a Hawaiian word meaning half or portion, is also slang for a person of mixed racial heritage with partial roots in Asian and/or Pacific Islander ancestry.
Fulbeck’s exhibit showcases portraits of hapas taken from the collarbone up, exposing their bare shoulders and faces. Without any makeup or jewelry each person is shown for who they truly are. Below each portrait are the person’s ethnicities and their answer to the question “What are you?.”
Although the responses, written in their own handwriting, are brief, they speak volumes about the person in the photograph and what it means to be a hapa. The answers vary from the poignant to the sympathetic to the humorous, such as the explanation from a boy whose European father fails at cooking Indian food: “My dad claims to be able to cook all kinds of food, although it tastes more like leather. I hope I’m not what I eat.”
The Hapa Project is not only a display of art, but also an expression of passionate feelings toward discrimination, identity, self-image and empowerment.
Fulbeck gives an intimate look into the lives of people from a mixture of races, cultural backgrounds and generations. The exhibit is both imminent and timely in the forum it has the potential to create. As the
numbers of multiracial people in the United States grow, so does the need for awareness and understanding.
The piercing eyes of a young Filipino/Mexican boy look out from a canvas that reads “I’m a very little boy in 5th grade that has no friends.” Through the attempt at cursive writing, with a few misspellings, it is easy to see a real person who society needs to better understand.
Those hapas known in popular culture who are proud of their heritage include Tiger Woods, Keanu Reeves and Anne Curry. Such role models follow the direction of the purpose of The Hapa Project.
It is Fulbeck’s mission to represent hapas by dispelling myths (such as labeling multiracial people as being “exotic” and the belief that anyone from Asian descent excels in math), encouraging solidarity within the multiracial community, and giving positive identity formation and self-image to multiracial children.
An opening reception for The Hapa Project will be held on Thursday, Feb. 9 from 5 to 8 p.m. The hours of operation for The Art Gallery are Monday - Wednesday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Thursday - Friday 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
For more information: http://www.sfsustudentcenter.com/artgallery/
Contact: artgallery@sfsustudentcenter.com
Phone: 415-338-2580
For additional information or a sample copy, contact: Cesar Chavez Student Center Publicity Department at 415-338-1789, publicitymgr@sfsustudentcenter.com
The Art Gallery is a student-run and student-funded program of the Cesar Chavez Student Center. The gallery is dedicated to bringing the visual and interdisciplinary arts to the multicultural student body at San Francisco State University through a diverse series of exhibitions of both student an non-student work.
Contact:
Sun K. Yom
San Francisco State University
Cesar Chavez Student Center
The Art Gallery
1650 Holloway Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94132
Phone: 415-338-2580
artgallery@sfsustudentcenter.com
RSS Subscribe
