Stirring up whiteness as antiracist resistance

My aim is to think critically, through the medium of porcelain, a material steeped in whiteness, capitalism and colonialism, about how challenging ideological whiteness can be an active tool for antiracism. By whiteness, I am referring not to skin colour, but to a constructed racialised identity that is positioned as superior to others and has both material and social benefits – what Eduardo Bonilla-Silva terms ‘embodied racial power’ (Doane and Bonilla-Silva, 2003, p.271). This is a conscious act of resistance, questioning whether a subversive use of porcelain can stir up the ‘sedimented social practices’ of whiteness (Mouffe, 2007) sufficiently to dismantle hegemonic whiteness.
Porcelain’s suitability for this task is evidenced by its history of entanglement with European imperial expansion, colonial exploitation and global racial capitalism, as well as its material and symbolic qualities. A bright white clay, porcelain is cherished for its purity, delicacy and strength; properties that have come to symbolise and embody, in Western eyes, precious, refined whiteness. I am hoping that porcelain will operate as my crowbar (after Garner, 2007) for the ideological labour required to resist and repel whiteness as antiracist practice. But I also hope to build on this resistance by making with porcelain as a way to ‘imagine otherwise’ (Olufemi, 2021), and dream of a future free from coloniality. The practical outcomes of this research include performance, sculpture, video and installations.