Homa Year 2 Race, Power and Privilege
Art Exhibition - 5th July 2024
The Year 2 Homa trainees exhibited their anti-racism artwork exploring race, power and privilege on 5th July 2024 at Homa Psychotherapy, 26 Lloyd Baker St, London, WC1X 9AW.
It Ain't Hysterical, It's Historical!
We are publishing this blog post at a time which is seeing a surge in overt racism, xenophobia, Muslim hatred and anti-semitism on our streets, in our communities and online.
Many of our Global Majority trainees and tutors are likely experiencing a heightened fear and anxiety for their safety and that of their loved ones at this time.
If you are a white person reading this, we hope that engaging with this post will remind you of the vital importance to keep doing the work of anti-racism, to keep taking action in whatever way you are committed to.
Anything we do can make a difference, not doing anything will continue to cause harm and means that racism will continue to go unchecked. The work of anti-racism is not just a module, it is a part of all our lives and it is our responsibility to challenge racism in ourselves and in the world.
If you would like to understand the context of this exhibition, you can read or listen to the blog post about the Homa Race, Power and Privilege module HERE
Bobbie introduced her peers: Sima, Shabana and Ishi
and tutors Trupti Magecha and Dr Aileen Alleyne.
Trupti Magecha opens the exhibiton folowed by a powerful performance piece by Sima, Shabana and Ishi. Dr Alleyne gives a brief talk about the work of anti-racism.
The trainees created six distinct exhibition spaces, using the various rooms at Homa. The installations were interactive and engaged the viewer physically, emotionally and intellectually. The images posted here do not do justice to the vibrancy and impact that each installation had in person.
For some for the rooms there are short videos of the work.
As you visit some of the rooms, you can click on the music track to accompany your exploration of the images.
We invite you to engage personally with the installations, the images, the words and the music and to allow all of what you see, sense and hear to impact you and call you to action.
It Ain't Hysterical, It's Historical!
The Mothers' Room
In our module on Race, Power, and Privilege, we curated "The Mothers' Room," a space dedicated to honouring our mothers and their journeys. The room included mark makings from the module and celebrated our ancestors with vibrant Pakistani outfits, reflecting both the vibrancy and the hardship of raising daughters to ensure they were married- the burden of heritage. Mangoes symbolised the joys of childhood, while an image of my Pakistani mother at her father's funeral in Uganda highlighted profound loss. Audio in Urdu spoke of life's hardships, especially for women of the global majority. The scent of incense filled the room, creating a warm, welcoming, and emotional atmosphere that paid tribute to the resilience and strength of our mothers.
By Shabana Shah
Play the music as you look at the images and read the words
Coming Home? or Leaving Home?
By Shabana Shah
In "Coming Home? or Leaving Home?", the tension between identity and belonging. The mark making portrays a woman of the global majority standing with her feet in the sand, tears flowing into the sea, symbolising both sorrow and hope. Wrapped in a British flag sarong, they embody the complex fusion of her cultural heritage and her present identity.
Commitment
By Wendy
This mark making was in response to something one of our tutors and a member of the GM shared.
“Sometimes I feel like I can see my footprints in the wet sand but when I turn round to look at them they have all disappeared”
This conveyed to me the heaviness, sadness and hopelessness that the GM feel. And it renewed my determination and commitment to always keep my eyes open, keep connected and connecting. Trusting my heart, the truth and speaking it. That is the least I can do to ease the burden of the GM.
Throughout this RPP module I watched the documentary
“The Story of Kalief Browder” and ivy became incredibly poignant and emotive for me.
Ivy came to me to represent the irrepressible winding vines of truth - even when you give ivy no light or water still it survives and thrives in the tiniest of cracks. It’s unstoppable.
The green shapes in this mark making represent ivy which I shall continue to throw like truth bombs into the water of my white supremacy.
Live
By Amy
I created this piece when reflecting on the impact of the term’s antiracism work. It feels live for me - a deepening expansion where I feel committed more than ever before. It’s past, present, future.
Sisters, We Need to Talk About Grief
By Shabana Shah
The pink and purple scribbles to depict the recognisable shapes of women from diverse backgrounds. These continuous strokes create a dynamic visual story, while scattered black scribbles highlight the richness and complexity of their experiences. This mark makings speaks of empowerment and resilience, blending cultural meaning with its exploration of activism and grief. It celebrates the strong bonds and mutual support among women, prompting a conversation about strength, unity, and resilience in facing life's challenges.
All our mothers... these photographs show the mothers of all the trainees in the group.
Lazy White People
We challenge white people to acknowledge the uncomfortable truth that white silence perpetuates all of the other facets of white supremacy that we were exploring. You are invited to sit in the dark with cold music, discomforting white noise and with just one spot-lit artwork, challenging you to address your own culpability or as a person from the Global Majority, to be with your own experience at the hands of lazy white people.
Nick
Take a seat. Make yourself uncomfortable. Unlike in this video, the room was in almost pitch black darkness.
Palestine Room
Play the music as you look at the images and read the words...
It felt obvious to me that we could not examine Race, Power and Privilege without acknowledging the devastation happening in Palestine.
All of which is at the hands of White Supremacy and Colonialism, spanning over 75 years.
I wanted this room to be educational and empowering. Exploring resistance, activism and solidarity.
We honour Our Hero, Our Martyrs and My (Ishi’s) Hero. There are good people everywhere showing us a better way of being. If we seek it, we shall find it.
The room walks you through Palestinian history, addressing false narratives and enforcing their right to Freedom.
In the background resistance music played, predominantly by Palestinian artists. Elevating their voices and experiences further.
We end with art work done by our children. One of the biggest forms of activism is to teach them, in hopes this will never happen again.
We end with Hope.
By Ishi
Occupation No More!
By Ishi
Whether you are occupying our land or you have since left you continue to steal from us.
I am Angry!
Stop taking what is not yours!
Hands Off!
Brown Face
By Ishi
When you look at me what do you see?
I have a brown face but that does not mean you know me
What enters your mind first? What narrative plays out?
Peel back the layers then maybe you will see the real me.
Let's bring it back to the human-to-human reality.
(Interactive piece, lift up each layer).
What If
By Ishi
What if White People started fighting against injustice?
What if White People freed us from the burden of our heritage that their ancestors inflicted?
What if White People stopped being part of the problem?
What If?
Our Hero
Motaz Azaiza is a 25 year old photojournalist from Gaza who has been pivotal in showing the TRUTH of this Genocide. He risked it all for the world to see the devastation of the brutal occupation. To no longer let the White Supremacy narrative dehumanise Palestinians. With a huge social media following he has become the People’s Hero.
By Ishi
Our Martyrs
Refaat Alareer was a Palestinian writer, poet, professor, and activist from the Gaza Strip.
On 6 December 2023, Alareer was killed by an Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza, along with his brother, sister, and four of his nephews.
His legacy and his words live on.
By Ishi
My Hero
My mum has showed me how to stand up and show up for injustice. She is the original Freedom Fighter in my family. Her passion and relentless commitment lives on in me and my children. Activism is in our blood.
My mum hasn’t missed a single March for Palestine since October 7th and her dedication to their liberation spans decades.
By Ishi
Take a look around the Palestine room ... with the music. Click play to watch the video.
Anti-Blackness and Oppression
The focus of this room is on the concept of empire and those who had built it - the forced and non-forced labour of people from the Global Majority, rendering them into such a position that they need to mask their complaints for fear of the consequences.
Playing in the room was an audio reading by Maya Angelou of her rendition of the poem, 'The Mask', in which she speaks about "white folk not understanding black features".
White folk are oblivious to the suffering of people from the Global Majority and this room sought to bring it undeniably to the forefront.
Bobbie
The Mask
By Bobbie
My response to Maya Angelou’s reading of her poem, The Mask, in which we hear her say, “They say, but sugar, it was our submission that made your world go round”, which highlights the indifference of white people to the suffering of black people in America. She then says, “They kept my race alive, By wearing the mask!”, which tells me the situation can get a lot worse if they ‘complain’ about it or don’t keep up the status quo. The escalation in Maya’s voice and the tears at the end of the video made me think of tears mixed with blood through the horrors faced by black people historically and presently, whilst being forced to wear the mask…
Empire
By Sue
As a child, I was educated to believe that The British Empire did nothing but good in the world… How wrong was I to swallow that whole.
Paper Chain People
By Amy
Racist stereotypes create a homogenised - and often negative - view of people of the Global Majority. When I haven’t seen the whole person I have made subconscious assumptions about them based on generations of white supremacist messages.
Harlequin Mask and Teeth
By Anna
This collage piece was in response to watching a video of Maya Angelou performing her poem ‘The Mask’. The harlequin mask represents the joker and their performance, almost theatrical. The teeth are bared rather than smiling. I found the poem haunting and this image was made to reflect that.
Ask Nicely….
By Bobbie
I created this to represent the impact I have had on a person of the Global Majority when I have tone policed them. From a place of white privilege, demanding that they make themself ‘palatable’ in their communication, were they stopped in their tracks from getting a referral that they needed because I projected the stereotype of “another angry black person” onto them? What were the consequences that I didn’t think about from this?
Our Pink Door and Dog Shit
By Shabana Shah
In exploration of gentrification in N16, the metaphor of the pink door to depict the community's transformation. As the area has gentrified, it has attracted a more affluent, predominantly white population focused on better schools and higher property values. However, alongside these changes, there has also been an increase in dog shit, reflecting the new demographic's presence.
The Mask by Maya Angelou
We wear the mask that grins and lies.
It shades our cheeks and hides our eyes.
This debt we pay to human guile
With torn and bleeding hearts…
We smile and mouth the myriad subtleties.
Why should the world think otherwise
In counting all our tears and sighs.
Nay let them only see us while
We wear the mask.
We smile but oh my God
Our tears to thee from tortured souls arise
And we sing Oh Baby doll, now we sing…
The clay is vile beneath our feet
And long the mile
But let the world think otherwise.
We wear the mask.
When I think about myself
I almost laugh myself to death.
My life has been one great big joke!
A dance that’s walked a song that’s spoke.
I laugh so hard HA! HA! I almos’ choke
When I think about myself.
Seventy years in these folks’ world
The child I works for calls me girl
I say “HA! HA! HA! Yes ma’am!”
For workin’s sake
I’m too proud to bend and
Too poor to break
So…I laugh! Until my stomach ache
When I think about myself.
My folks can make me split my side
I laugh so hard, HA! HA! I nearly died
The tales they tell sound just like lying
They grow the fruit but eat the rind.
Hmm huh! I laugh uhuh huh huh…
Until I start to cry when I think about myself
And my folks and the children.
My fathers sit on benches,
Their flesh count every plank,
The slats leave dents of darkness
Deep in their withered flank.
And they gnarled like broken candles,
All waxed and burned profound.
They say, but sugar, it was our submission
that made your world go round.
There in those pleated faces
I see the auction block
The chains and slavery’s coffles
The whip and lash and stock.
My fathers speak in voices
That shred my fact and sound
They say, but sugar, it was our submission
that made your world go round.
They laugh to conceal their crying,
They shuffle through their dreams
They stepped ’n fetched a country
And wrote the blues in screams.
I understand their meaning,
It could an did derive
From living on the edge of death
They kept my race alive
By wearing the mask! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
Have a look around the room...
Trapdoors
Every time the trapdoor opens, the physical sensation is the same: your stomach lurches the way it does when you're on a roller coaster that has just begun its descent and you are momentarily weightless, your stomach separated from the rest of your body, travelling a few seconds behind. A hot flash at the back of your neck begins creeping up towards your ears. Involuntarily, almost instinctively, you become focused on making your face appear as neutral as possible to cover up your embarrassment, decades of practice having hardened into a reflex (and it is always you that feels embarrassed, never your assailant).
Even after all these years, the descent still comes as a surprise.
Otegha Uwagba, WHITES
By Sima
If you are a white person, please read the words by Otegha Uwagba and respond by journalling or doing some art/mark-making in the sketch pads provided. How do you feel? Where do you feel it? Do not leave the room (or this blog post) without responding.
If you are from the Global Majority you can choose to respond or not. Be gentle with yourself.
By Sima
SEEN
By Shabana Shah
The challenges white supremacy's dynamics of visibility. Using chalk on black paper, the questions are who truly gets seen and understood, juxtaposing bold declarations with faint inquiries. The scrunched rectangle symbolises obscured truths and silenced voices, prompting reflection on acknowledgment and equality in society dominated by white norms.
Hands, Eyes, Waves
By Anna
This piece was done in response to White Fragility. The eyes represent white peoples tears, mine and those of others. The lids half closed as though apathetic and not really seeing the truth of the situation. I drew around my hands a number of times. They are held up as if covering a face in shame but the head is the earth and it sits upon a backdrop of waves.
By Sima
This piece was done in the first week that we began the Race, Power and Privilege work. I was holding so much anger and sadness and I realised that the anger took over and I felt myself drawn to the red felt tip and just free-styled red squiggles. I needed to get the anger out of my body and out onto the paper in front of me. Why am I still having to deal with racism? Will it ever get better? Why is so much of my life seen through this prism? My anger needed to be processed here - it's all so tangled up and I can't see a way through.
Snakes
By Anna Collin
I drew these snakes in response to learning the phrase Global Majority. As a white woman living in society I have been led to believe through many structures and systems that any ethnicity other than white is a minority but this is not the case.
These snakes represent the shady, insidious side to this delusion/illusion.
By Sima
I continued to be drawn to red when it came to our mark-making this term. Processing my anger by just going wild with the red felt tip. I remember wanting to be 'white' when I was about 8 years old in the late 1980s and wanting to change my name to 'Laura', or 'Victoria' or 'Joanna'. White after all was 'right', white had 'might' and all that was good was white. These memories from my childhood makes me reflect on my conditioning and why I’ve always been so proud of speaking 'well' and sounding 'posh'. Time to get curious...
By Sima
This was a response to a question our tutor Trupti asked the white trainees in the room: 'Would you have done this work if you didn't have to as part of the course?' The overwhelming response was 'no', which bought up a lot of feelings inside of me. It was that 'trapdoor' moment again. This piece came to me very quickly and I felt such an urge to tear up pieces of paper, as well as write different statements that summed up my thoughts to my white peers in the group. The one that stands out for me is 'Risk - will you take it'? This is in relation to doing this work. And if I'm honest, I'm not sure many of them are really invested in doing so. It's SO easy to stay in the white privilege bubble. What price are you all willing to pay to lose your privileges?
We All Bleed Red….
By Bobbie
But historic and current events tell us that it’s less important if you’re black and bleeding…
By Sima
I have spoken about my 'Trapdoor' moment a lot in the group. This is a term coined by the journalist Wesley Morris and he describes it as an awareness that you could be dropped through a 'trapdoor' of racism at any moment. Words are said that have such an impact that I am hurtling down that 'trapdoor', and as ever I stay quiet and pretend that all is ok, I am ok, it's totally ok for you to make that racist comment or say something that is a micro-aggression. But inside of my body, I can feel myself hurting viscerally and it's like lots of tiny cuts to my soul and my humanity.
Commitment
This room displays the art work that we created when talking about our commitments and what allyship means to us, so we wanted to invite our guests to reflect and share their own commitments - thus bringing them into the experience.
Amy
2Pac - Changes (Featuring Talent)
The post it wall is about capturing commitments from our exhibition guests.
By Sima
I wanted to keep my commitments simple and to the point. Ones I knew I could stick to. I am going to SPEAK UP. I am going to TAKE UP SPACE. And I will also remember to revel in and feel JOY because I deserve that too. This work can be so heavy, but between the grief and rage that it has brought up, I can also give myself permission to experience all the joy that life can also bring.
Allyship
By Wendy
This mark making represents my waking up to the hard truths of what life is like for the Global Majority. This drawing was in response to hearing the following statements of truth from members of the Global Majority in my group:
“Each time I experience a micro aggression - I lose a little more trust every time it happens”
“Last night I dreamt that I was an animal, I was with other animals and we were saying fuck you to all the white people - and I realised an animal is the closest frame of reference I have for myself”
This mark making is an offering to participate in and commit to the global majority’s process of grief. It’s an invitation to take some of the burden the Global Majority carry onto myself in order to create a shift in balance that needs to happen.
I’m very much at the beginning of learning what a true ally to the Global Majority is and I also know that inevitably I will also get it wrong along the way. And I am committed to staying present and engaged in a process of reconciliation. Reminding myself it is my responsibility to travel alongside members of the Global Majority in their process of grief in order for them to heal.
Hit Them Where it Hurts…
By Bobbie
Oppression, be it slavery, child labour or poverty and destitution, always comes down to MONEY. And it’s ALWAYS at the expense of the people of the global majority. One of my main commitments is to PUT MY MONEY WHERE MY MOUTH IS and boycott large corporations who profit off this oppression and source independent, BIPOC-owned (Black, Indigenous People of Colour) businesses so that they are receiving the full amount for their work.
Fragile Balance
By Shabana Shah
In this mark-making piece, I explore themes of values, commitments, and the burden of heritage. Scribbles and embedded rocks—some precarious, some steadfast—symbolise the complexities of holding onto and navigating one's cultural identity and legacy in systematic oppression which is weaved into our world. The scattered pebbles represent the challenges and vulnerabilities in maintaining these values, highlighting both resilience and fragility.
Hole in my Heart
By Ishi
Every micro aggression, every racist attack and every form of oppression feel like bullet wounds to my heart.
I am high functioning on low capacity, never whole.
I commit to myself, in no longer accepting racism to me and around me.
I commit to mending my broken heart.
Awareness
By Sue
I thought being a ‘good’ person was enough. I now know it isn’t.
Equity = Power
By Bobbie
You cannot have equality without equity. GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY NEED, NOW!!!
Commitments
By Amy
These are my commitments. I know this list will grow and shift over time because this work is never done. For me, this work is about love, repair, grief, anger.
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The Year 2 HOMA tutors deeply appreciate the Year 2 trainees for co-creating such a unique, impactful and powerful exhibition.
As part of the Race, Power and Privilege work, the group also produced a photographic book. There will be another blog post published shortly to share this project.
If you woud like to find out more about training at Homa, take the first step and attend an Introductory Workshop.
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