Vampire Politics
Responding to Fragile Differences, Relational Effects, by Amade M’charek
M’charek explores questions about what it means to be visible. M’charek describes the different levels to which a person’s identity can be seen as mainstream or, as she refers to “neutral”, whereas other identities are Other(iz)ed. She also describes the experience of tokenism: of objectifying individuals and caricaturing them in a way that they become one dimensional, and are seen as representatives for all other people who share one facet of their identity.
The issue of tokenism is also prevalent in the contemporary art world. We are reminded of a quote by Merray Gerges, who articulated this problem by saying “How can you ever be yourself in the art world when your self is a neocolonial commodity?” This illustrates her point that artists of color are expected to make artworks about their racialized identities and experiences, whereas white artists are allowed to make art about whatever they want — because their experiences are thought of as “neutral”, “apolitical”, “normal”.
As an artist of color, there are a few problems with this approach. Firstly, it is the dominant culture that renders the racialized individual an “other”. Without the expectation of the mainstream/dominant/white gaze, what would cause a racialized person to see themselves as different — different from whom? Being hyperaware of one’s identity creates a sort of facade whereby your authentic voice is challenged. Instead, you present your work to the mainstream with the assumption that the person consuming your work is not from your ingroup. It becomes tempting to shorthand and stereotype your culture (even if those stereotypes are not harmful) and you can feel like a native informant.
Secondly, continuing to centralize white, cis, male, Western approaches to art production does not challenge the status quo — it allows the art world to become stagnant. This is a problem because art is about disruption and tension and flux.
One of the consequences of putting pressure on people of color to create ‘racialized’ art is that, in order to create art, artists need funding. Usually the people who provide funding are rich, white, and Western. As a result, this leaves little room for the artists to create artwork that combats the status quo, when the very people who are funding their art are the manifestation of the status quo. Thus, it is very unlikely that an artist would be successful in receiving funding for art that is critical of the hegemonic powers that be. So basically, the availability of funding determines/restricts the scope of artwork that is produced, exhibited, and publicized.
It is interesting to consider the motivations of a white patron of the arts who seeks to fund artists of color. Why? It feels a little white savior-y to us — the white person claiming to support all artists of color by funding the work of one artist of color.
The whole concept of funding is problematic. Firstly, the way that grants are categorized and allocated to different groups is quite presumptuous. Grants that are based on race, nationality, or any kind of affiliation objectify and essentialize those identifiers. For example if there’s a grant for South Asian artists, can Indo-Caribbean people apply? Can they apply to a grant for Black diasporas? We need to be accountable for the people whose life experiences we minimize and/or erase through careless word choices, especially if their identities are already marginalized.
Furthermore, questions that are part of grant applications can be quite restrictive or altogether irrelevant. The way that questions are phrased don’t really allow artists to write freely about who they are or what they want to say. Instead, artists must write their applications in a way that aligns with the funding body’s objectives and pre-set agenda. For example, the Ontario Trillium Foundation’s Seed Grants application asks how the outcomes of one’s work aligns with the “priorities” and “[desired] results” of the granting organization. Again, this goes back to our earlier point that work is defined by the ‘establishment’ — in this case, it is regulated by the state.
Finally, the grant system is quite inaccessible. In Ontario at least, the vast majority of grants are written in, and require responses in, English. That obviously restricts the kinds of people who have information about the grant, and who can apply. Even if you do speak English, because the grant process is so academic and elitist, are you even able to represent yourself in an authentic voice? If you do not speak, understand, or write English, what are your options? If someone applies through a translator, that presents its own set of troubles. How can you put forth an authentic voice in translation? Are these grants, with such inclusive names, actually available to the communities which they claim to serve? Are people who fit into marginalized categories even encouraged to apply?
These are the questions we need to answer in order to destabilize the system.
