Question of Black and white

British artist Tatiana de Stempel is dressed in pristine white while her Indian curator Manoj Nair is in pitch black attire. Though unintentional, they seem to be transmitting a silent message about the politics of colour which they deal with in their show called ‘What Colour Would You Choose?’ It will open on January 15 at Mattanchery's B C Gallery. More specifically, what the Indo-Anglian duo is bothered about are the issues surrounding the colour of people’s skin.

The subject of skin colour and racism has been in Tatiana’s mind for long. She talks about how, even when she was a little girl in East London, she was amazed to see the Black and White Minstrel show in which white people performed after blackening their faces. “There was something odd and caricaturish about it,” she says, before going on to mention the migration deaths off the coast of Sicily in Italy, the massacre at Charleston church in the US and the unjust treatment meted out to victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

She met Manoj Nair at the Delhi Art Fair in 2014 through a common Malayali friend and artist, Benoy Varghese. Benoy had done some work based on the theme of racism and as they exchanged notes, the idea of the current project took birth. “Nothing reflects the obsession about skin colour more than the thriving market for fairness creams,” she says.

The project, named after a game in which children choose their favourite colour, is in three parts. The first is a series of photos of people of different nationalities and skin colour sticking out their tongues. “The idea is that the tongue is of the same colour for everyone, everywhere. We stick out the tongue when we mock at people. Besides, we use it to speak out,” says Manoj. Tatiana adds that in the same way, there is no black or brown brain and that people are same everywhere.

The second part involves a series of random interviews with people of different backgrounds including Malayalis to find out what people think about their skin colour and whether they are happy in their own skin. The Kerala leg of the interviews was done by the artist during the last Biennale in Kochi. “Most of them in these parts said that skin colour is not all that important. They said education and hard work are the crucial aspects in life,” says Tatiana, before quoting from Michelle Obama’s ‘twice as god’ speech to university graduates in which she talked of how African Americans had to work doubly hard to prove themselves at college and at work. Similarly, even among darker communities, those with relatively lighter skin got off lightly while the rest were saddled with tougher tasks. “The other day, I heard about a Mollywood actor who wouldn’t come out of his car for fear that his skin would get a tan,” says Manoj, inviting a quip from Tatiana on how there is a huge clamour among Europeans to get a tan once summer arrives.

The third section of the project deals with hair which is also a basis for racism and discrimination. The fourth involves a series of portraits of people from different parts of the world. This is an inquiry into the evolution of human skin in different parts of the world. The portraits illustrate formulaic segregations based on skin colour and their social significance.

Manoj hopes that it will be a travelling show. “We want to show it next in Chennai and then take it to London in March. We have a plan to have an exhibition in the US too.”