seeing white - sharing the burden of race

Michelle Booth is a Cape Town based artist. In 2000 she started full time studies in photography at the Ruth Prowse College of Art. At the end of 2002 Michelle completed a Post Graduate Diploma in Fine Art at the Michaelis School of Fine Art at the University of Cape Town (UCT).

Michelle graduated from UCT in 1992 with a Business Science degree and has worked in the NGO sector and as a management consultant.

In 2002 I made a series of photographic images entitled "Seeing White". This body of work was born out of my struggle to come to terms with what it means to be white in a world where black people experience racism everyday, where race structures almost every aspect of their lives and their psyches. This is not just a theoretical or intellectual concern. I have had to confront the dailiness of this racism on those closest to me. I have had to witness their pain, anger and frustration. I was made aware of how "whiteness makes its presence felt in black life, most often as terrorising imposition, a power that wounds, hurts, tortures"ⁱ

I understood that I could no longer be complacent or neutral about my whiteness. It had power - and the impact of that power is profoundly real on other human beings. I realised that no matter what my intentions or choices, I could not be separated from the superstructure of whiteness that continues to construct my whiteness in terms of my position of power and privilege both in South Africa and in the world at large.

In South Africa, given our apartheid past, we are aware of race - but we do not share that burden equally. Race, for whites is not a burden in the same way that blackness is, mostly because the experience of being white is still largely that of privilege. Instead of bemoaning that reality, or feeling powerless in the face of its fateful authority, I decided to take responsibility for where I found myself and to grapple with the issues that arose. How to be white and privileged and critique whiteness, which entrenches privilege.

For me this meant turning my gaze, the lens of my camera, into the invisible centre of whiteness and making it what Richard Dyer calls "particular"ⁱⁱ.

The making of this work has been a reflection of my own personal journey in understanding and coming to terms with my whiteness and how it continues to locate me in a position of privilege. Without vigilance, it is an easy and comfortable place to remain unless challenged. This work reflects my commitment to be seen as a white artist to be taking responsibility for raising these uncomfortable matters in the heart of whiteness, and in doing so, sharing the burden of race.

Read a fuller explanation of the conceptual issues...