{"id":51512,"date":"2017-02-11T17:57:29","date_gmt":"2017-02-11T17:57:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=51512"},"modified":"2017-03-25T16:14:55","modified_gmt":"2017-03-25T16:14:55","slug":"paradox-identity-and-belonging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=51512","title":{"rendered":"Paradox: Identity and Belonging"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/ceramicartsdaily.org\/ceramics-monthly\/article\/paradox-identity-belonging\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em><strong>Paradox: Identity and Belonging<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/ceramicartsdaily.org\/ceramics-monthl\" target=\"_blank\">Ceramics Monthly<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/ceramicartsdaily.org\/ceramics-monthly\/current-issue\/?issue=march-2017\" target=\"_blank\">March 2017<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/heidimckenzie.ca\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Heidi McKenzie<\/strong><\/a>, Ceramic Artist<br \/>\n<em>Toronto, Ontario, Canada<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/ceramicartsdaily.org\/ceramics-monthly\/article\/paradox-identity-belonging\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/ceramicartsdaily.org\/ceramics-monthly\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2017\/02\/FC_Mar17CM-175x220.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I was in the room when <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Chicago\" target=\"_blank\">Chicago<\/a>-based artist <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theastergates.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Theaster Gates<\/a> delivered his keynote speech at the <a href=\"https:\/\/nceca.net\/\" target=\"_blank\">National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA)<\/a> conference in <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Milwaukee\" target=\"_blank\">Milwaukee, Wisconsin<\/a>, in 2014. Among many things, he spoke about his sense of isolation working as a black artist in an otherwise white-dominated creative milieu. He asked people in the audience who self-identified as African American to stand up. When fewer than 40 people in a room of 4000-plus stood up, I was shaken. I recognized that this was a physical expression of a deeply rooted sense of disenfranchisement, on both collective and personal levels. Gates put the discomfort of race on the table. It was a call to action.<\/p>\n<p>I organized a panel of mixed-race ceramic sculpture artists whose work speaks to issues of race and identity titled \u201cParadox: Identity &amp; Belonging\u201d for NCECA\u2019s 50th anniversary conference in <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Kansas_City,_Missouri\" target=\"_blank\">Kansas City, Missouri<\/a>, last spring. Fellow Canadian, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.brendantang.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Brendan Tang<\/a>, as well as Americans <a href=\"http:\/\/jenniferlingdatchuk.com\/home.html\" target=\"_blank\">Jennifer Datchuk<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nathanamurray.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Nathan Murray<\/a> joined me on stage. Their words cut deeply into the personal journeys of many in the audience who stayed and shared with us for over an hour after the panel discussion, a conversation that moved onto a gathering of more than 20 at a local eatery. The synergies, revelations, and resonances were powerful, walls came tumbling down, and for a moment in time there was a collective sense of empowerment, a feeling that we\u2019re all in this together, sifting through the paradox of mixed race&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article <a href=\"http:\/\/ceramicartsdaily.org\/ceramics-monthly\/article\/paradox-identity-belonging\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I organized a panel of mixed-race ceramic sculpture artists whose work speaks to issues of race and identity titled \u201cParadox: Identity &#038; Belonging\u201d for NCECA\u2019s 50th anniversary conference in Kansas City, Missouri, last spring. Fellow Canadian, Brendan Tang, as well as Americans Jennifer Datchuk and Nathan Murray joined me on stage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,24,19,125,8,20],"tags":[26197,26198,26203,26194,26195,26200,26199,26202,26201,26196],"class_list":["post-51512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-arts","category-canada","category-identitydevelopment","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-brendan-lee-satish-tang","tag-brendan-tang","tag-ceramics","tag-ceramics-monthly","tag-heidi-mckenzie","tag-jennifer-datchuk","tag-jennifer-ling-datchuk","tag-nathan-a-murray","tag-nathan-murray","tag-theaster-gates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51512"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52909,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51512\/revisions\/52909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}