Selina Thompson: "Race Cards"

One room. One thousand questions about race, each with a number.

65. Are you black, or are you ‘new black’?

170. What is the long term psychological impact of white supremacy on people of colour?

307. Why do people assume that racism will just passively die out if we wait long enough?

541. What ever happened to Kony 2012?

660. Who is more problematic – famous racist Nigel Farage, or the liberal journalist politely asking him questions?

720. When does it all end?

How many questions do you have about race? Selina Thompson has a thousand, and counting. When asked a question, sometimes it’s not about having the right answer, but about starting a difficult, necessary conversation, about asking ourselves and our communities to challenge our own assumptions and beliefs. Selina Thompson’s installation and performance, comprised of 1,000 questions about race painstakingly transcribed onto note cards, can be thought of as generous invitations to start a conversation and reflect critically on the complexities and intersections of identity. An evolving archive and research project, Race Cards provides an important opportunity to reflect, ask questions of ourselves, and contribute to an archive of feelings, memories, and ideas that too often go unspoken.