American Masquerade (v.1) is a two-part performance piece that explores the phenomenon of racial passing.

Growing up as a fair-skinned Black person, I was taught about Black folks who would pass as white, in order to escape the violence of racism in America. I never had any desire to do so, rather, the opposite. However, I later became interested in the act itself. In the daily performance it took to deny one’s cultural upbringing. Most painfully, to deny one’s own family, one’s own self in pursuit of a semblance of freedom. What new prison emerges in the mind when you are forced to hide in plain sight?

This first iteration of American Masquerade partly uses public performance to imitate in an overly-obvious way, the ways in which those Black folk must’ve moved through the world. Using their own faces as masks to hide their blackness. The second video in this iteration takes the form of a sort of makeup tutorial, in which I apply a full face of makeup to emphasize the “coverup” that takes place. Three main thumbnail images also accompany this performance to assist in the storytelling.