the paper bag test

Enter a laboratory based on shades of colour demonstrated through identification cards, chromatic charts, paintings and swatches of colour. A voice announces the status of each colour shade as it flashes on a monitor. These pieces reveal the secret colour code that exists within particular groups; codes that represent social acceptance based on the chromatic value of skin colour. These colour categories are known within these groups and have very clear definitions.

Stratification of social status based upon skin colour differences has continued very strongly from one generation to another within Diasporas groups. Colourism can be found amongst Diaspora groups who lived under British, and European imperialism where an understanding of one’s place within the unspoken hierarchical structures of skin tone became a learned behaviour; an important mechanism for ones survival in these societies. The lighter one’s skin tonality, the more preferential treatment one shall receive. The darker one’s epidermis, the least preference and respect one shall receive. This colour based hierarchy could be defined by the brown paper bag test once used to determine one’s fitness to enter certain department stores: Skin lighter than a brown paper grocery bag can pass, darker fails, a hush-hush practice that continues to prevail today in many societies.

Many people unconsciously assign a role or character based on a person's skin colour. These assigned roles have often been based on roles played out in the media, which serves to reinforce racial stereotypes. These stereotypes of colourism form a prison of cultural expectation in our society for people of colour. The issue of colour and its political ramifications – the question of how ones life is structured based on one’s pigment – is what I address in this work. The purpose of this project is to help individuals tell their stories by providing an open dialogue on colourism.

The paper bag test is a multi media installation consisting of ink drawings from popular culture, portrait paintings and appropriated documentary-style interviews based on the interviewees' stories of colourism.