Slideshow from online talk by Jane Trowell on the visual/art-historical aspects of her PhD research, for the Social Practice Social series, at Primary, Nottingham (UK). 1st June 2021. https://www.weareprimary.org/whats-on/sps-june-2021

1. Whiteness and coloniality in art education:
who am I to do this work?
Jane Trowell, PhD candidate, School of Education, University of Nottingham
jane.trowell@nottingham.ac.uk
Social Practice Social, Primary, Nottingham, 1.6.21

2. Testimony of peers, majority who are artists/art educators of colour
Practice of conversations to undo white privilege
Scholar-activism
Visual / art historical methods

3. Why visual / art historical methods?

4. “one must be prepared to linger, to remain, with the truth
about one’s white self and the truth about how whiteness
has structured and continues to structure forms of
relationship that are oppressive to people of colour.”
George Yancy, White Self-Criticality beyond Anti-Racism (2015) p.xv

5. Warning #1
“Coloniality survives colonialism.
It is maintained alive in books, in the criteria for academic
performance, in cultural patterns, in common sense, in the self-image
of peoples, in aspirations of self, and so many other aspects of our
modern experience.
In a way, as modern subjects we breathe coloniality all the time and
everyday.”
Nelson Maldonado-Torres (2007) p.243

7. 1985
photo: Catherine Armstrong
maskings
& unmaskings
(WEB Du Bois,
Frantz Fanon,
George Yancy, Sara Ahmed)

9. 2016, in my room
ambush
George Yancy (2015) p.xiii

10. BBC, 7th June 2020

11. A Surge of Power (Jen Reid)
by Marc Quinn and Jen Reid
Unsanctioned installation 15th July 2020,
removed by Bristol City Council 16th July 2020, at a cost of £520

12. Larry Achiampong’s response on Twitter
https://mobile.twitter.com/ilona_sagar/status/1283412157804183552

13. Professor Kalwant Bhopal (2017)
‘Unconscious Bias’ training
“identify under- and over-representation
at every level”

14. •In 2016, 31% of children in UK primary and
secondary school were from minority ethnic
backgrounds (DfE, 2017b, 8)
•London averaged at 72%, with inner London at
81% and outer London at 56%. (GLA, 2017, 25)

15. •Over 94.4% of secondary Art teachers in 2016
were white (DfE, 2017, FOI)
• 73.9% of UK primary and secondary teachers in
2017 are female
(DfE, 2017, 7)

16. White graduate-class women
dominate the arts educator/learning sector
•This is a ‘crisis of representation’ (Boyle & Charles, 2016)
•It is structural.
•It is institutional racism.

17. What and who is being made invisible?
What and who is being reproduced?

18. The Guardian
20th October 2010

19. The Guardian, 24th May 2021

20. working towards becoming
”Real, honest colleagues…?”
Cynthia Dillard (2000)

21. ”I am looking for real colleagues…”

22. … I am looking for real, honest colleagues.

23. …colleagues who are comfortable enough
with their own constructions of their own
communities to respect mine,

24. who aren't scared of talking about the ways that
racism,
or classism,
or sexism,
or homophobia
shape our decisions about policies and programs
within education art.

25. …folks who know that those are the very
conversations that will breathe life into an
academy [artworld] that thrives on
reproducing privilege and inequality at
every turn.”
Cynthia Dillard, (2000) p.668, my deletions & insertions

26. Why individual and institutional work?
Extract from: Claudia Rankine in conversation with Judith Butler
https://vimeo.com/473984783

27. “For me, what the real democratic
teacher has to do is, just, make
clear to the students of
the impossibility of neutral
education”
Paulo Freire (1995) p.68

28. “For me, what the real democratic
[art educator] has to do is, just,
make clear…of
the impossibility of a neutral
[artworld]”
Paulo Freire (1995)
- my insertions

29. Warning #2
These images may be dangerous for your
racial self-esteem.
Adapted from Wole Soyinka….
From Nobel Lecture (1986) p.21
Original:
“Warning! This work is dangerous for your racial self-esteem”

35. Henrietta of Lorraine…, Anthony Van Dyck, 1634
Kenwood House, London
Henrietta

38. Henrietta, Britannia, Victoria
and other art educators

39. Henrietta of Lorraine…., Anthony Van Dyck, 1634
Kenwood House, London
Henrietta

40. Henrietta of Lorraine attended by a page, Anthony Van Dyck, 1634
Kenwood House, London
Henrietta = Control

42. Name him

43. ?
ambush

44. Escape Control

45. The East offering its riches to Britannia, Roma Spiridione, 1778
Foreign and Commonwealth Office, (formerly India House), London
Britannia

46. The East offering its riches to Britannia, Roma Spiridione, 1778
Foreign and Commonwealth Office, (formerly India House), London
Britannia = Self-Delusion

49. Puncture Self-delusion

50. British Museum 'Teachers' webpage, accessed 8
th
August 2017

51. Victoria

52. The Secret of England's Greatness, Thomas Barker, 1863
National Portrait Gallery, London
Victoria = White Knowledge Supremacy

56. (Accessed 5
th
August 2017)

59. Refuse White Knowledge Supremacy

60. “one must be prepared to linger, to remain, with the truth
about one’s white self and the truth about how whiteness
has structured and continues to structure forms of
relationship that are oppressive to people of colour.”
George Yancy, White Self-Criticality beyond Anti-Racism (2015) p.xv

61. The Creation of Adam, Michelangelo, 1508-12
Sistine Chapel ceiling, Vatican, Rome

62. “theory as liberatory practice”
bell hooks (1994) p.59

63. The Creation of God, Harmonia Rosales, 2017

64. 2018

65. The Raft of the Medusa, Théodore Géricault, 1818/19, Louvre

67. 2018

68. References
Ahmed, Sara. (2004). Declarations of Whiteness: The Non-Performativity of Anti-Racism [online]
at Borderlands. Available at:
http://www.borderlands.net.au/vol3no2_2004/ahmed_declarations.htm
Accessed 24 January 2018
Ahmed, Sara. (2016). Progressive Racism. [online] Feminist Killjoys. Available at:
https://feministkilljoys.com/2016/05/30/progressive-racism/ Accessed 6 June 2016.
Bhopal, Kalwant, 2018. White privilege: The myth of a post-racial society. University of Bristol:
Policy Press.
Boyle, Bill. and Charles, Marie. (2016). How Can Only 18 Black Teachers Working in Liverpool
Represent a Diverse Teaching Workforce? A Critical Narrative, International Journal of Inclusive
Education, 20:8, pp 871-888
de Figueiredo-Cowen, Maria, and Gastaldo, Denise. (eds). (1995) Paulo Freire at the Institute,
London: Institute of Education Press
Department for Education (2017a) School Workforce in England, November 2016, HMSO, UK
Department for Education (2017b) Schools, Pupils and their Characteristics, January 2017,
HMSO, UK

69. Dillard, Cynthia. (2000) The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen:
examining an endarkened feminist epistemology in educational research and leadership, in
International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 13(6), pp661–681
Du Bois, W.E. (1920). The Souls of White Folk. Reproduced in Monthly Review, November 2004,
56(6), 44-51
Fanon, Frantz. (1952/1986). Black Skin, White Masks, London: Pluto Press
GLA. (2017) Annual London Education Report, Greater London Authority, UK
hooks, bell. (1994). Teaching to Transform: Education as the Practice of Freedom, Routledge
Maldonado-Torres, Nelson. (2007). On the coloniality of being: Contributions to the development
of a concept, in: Cultural studies, 21(2-3), pp.240-270.
Rankine, Claudia, In conversation with Judith Butler. (2020) Visionaries Series, New Museum, New
York, at https://vimeo.com/473984783, accessed 29.1.21
Soyinka, Wole (1986) Nobel Prize Lecture. Reproduced in Maja-Pearce, Adewale. (1994). Wole
Soyinka: An Appraisal, Heinemann
Yancy, George. (2015). White Self-Criticality beyond Anti-Racism, How does it feel to be a White
Problem?, Lexington Books

70. Extras:

71. “To be unsutured, is to be linked to losing
one’s way, is dispositional and aspirational.
As such, being unsutured involves the
continuous process of renewal and
commitment.”
George Yancy (2015) p.xvi

72. The humble teacher… accepts being criticised by the
student…
Need courage and stamina to practice humility
-controlling vanity
-acting without thinking that by acting I am the best
-being wary of loving being loved
-understanding oneself in the process of being, with all
the abilities and all the faults
-neither to deny or emphasise the values we have
-not to be afraid of being criticised
-not to be full of yourself because someone said you are
interesting
-resist compliments
Paulo Freire, from 'Paulo Freire at the Institute', (1995)

73. “I am seeking some I-am-equally-responsible-
for-engaging-and-dialoging-in-the-most-
honest-ways-I-can kinds of colleagues”
Cynthia Dillard (2000) p669