RECORDED 2/22/16: I was thrilled to speak with filmmaker Lindsay C. Harris about her compelling film series Evoking the Mulatto. Listen in here or download the episode on itunes.-Heidi Durrow
Interdisciplinary artist Lindsay C. Harris was born in Southern California in 1986 and raised in Santa Fe, NM.
Receiving her B.A. in Africana Studies & Art from Vassar College and M.A. in Arts Politics from NYU,
she is an arts educator, writer, critical thinker, cultural worker, comedian, designer, and performer.
Through fragmented modes of representation and voyeurism, bemusing through visual stimulation and often
comic bizarre, her artistic body of work seeks to complicate and fracture the rigidity of identity manifested in
racial and sexual classification as a means of controlling and otherizing marginalized bodies.
Hello there, Heidi!
Again, a terrific program on one very important subject. We’ve chatted a few times over on Facebook, and have exchanged tales of our respective Scandinavian connections. Indeed, the talk with this filmmaker was an eye opener. My son, Dakota, is the product of an African American dad, yours truly, and a Swedish mother.
Like your guest here, my son, who is fair skinned with green eyes, also works in the movie making business, but, in his case, working in front of the camera. I am not sure about the ‘tragic mulatto’ thing that was broached between you and Lindsay Harris, but the dynamics here, of one’s identity can be one tricky slope growing up.
My son, who is 16 years of age, loves Hip – Hop music, and is fascinated with all things AMERICAN. Yet, those hyperbolic issues of how confronting ‘light skin’ privilege can be daunting. Folks like Kathleen Cleaver, widow of the Black Panther member, Eldridge, from back-in-the-day, do come to mind. He fully identifies with the American Black experience, and has this hunger to learn more about it…. even though growing up in Sweden, his relationship to Black America is theoretical.
I try temper down his fascination, at times, as he is ‘hip’ to the violence and, discrimination confronting young Black men within his age bracket. No easy issues here. And it is very complicated, as you yourself note. Yes, these are complicated times.
I would have been interested in learning what is next up for this young woman. Like what projects she is working on now? Young people like her are very important, and have some powerful and important things to say.
Thanks for the program, I will tune in more.
All the best!
-Eric