I’ve seen the yellow squares posted on my feed in response to the post by @potterybyosa (please check out the account and read the original post). Her message is important, and I agree with so much of what she says, so I’ll let you go and read her words. Instead of just reposting her words, I’m going to riff off of them. I’m posting this shot of my skin as my “yellow square.” . . . It is difficult to describe the experience of being of Chinese heritage in contemporary western ceramics. I have experienced more micro and macro aggressions than I can count. Exotified, tokenized, exploited, trivialized; these don’t even begin to scratch the surface of how I feel in predominantly white ceramic spaces. It’s gotten to the point where I am seriously considering whether I want to work in the medium anymore. . Being “Asian” in ceramics is living a number of contradictions. You are expected to excel and do so effortlessly. It’s the field’s take on the model minority myth; ceramics is the craft world’s equivalent of math. I’ve actually been told to my face that “of course you’re good at ceramics, you’re Chinese, it’s in your DNA.” Chinese culture is revered for it’s creativity in ceramics, but is also criticized for how its culture around education is rigid and stifles creativity. Chinese ceramics is still viewed as a standard for quality, but things manufactured in China are crap. We are a minority and not a minority (and sometimes both at the same time) depending on what is convenient. I’m dismayed at how underserved we are by the prominent institutions in the field while simultaneously being horrified that we are counted in “diversity” numbers that are sorely lacking in Black, Latinx, Native American, non-east Asians, and other underrepresented groups. . So much of western contemporary ceramics is deeply rooted in white supremacist and patriarchal systems. A key step in changing this to openly and unequivocally acknowledge it. The nature of systemic bias is that it is ubiquitous. Believing you’re not a part of it is a part of the problem. . #actionandaccountability #blacksquarefollowup #anotherworldispossible https://www.instagram.com/p/CLse_cSD25x/?igshid=ar6dt4mxeaw3
