Interview with Heidi Fancher, commended artist at the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2013 for her self-portrait.

 

More on the Portrait Competition at http://portraitcompetition.si.edu

 

Heidi Fancher writes:

 

"The inspiration for my work is taken from my archival research into the philosophical, pseudo-scientific, and religious foundations of racism. In this piece, I am exploring how the Age of Reason's reliance on physical appearance as scientific fact justified the dehumanization of non-European groups to the position of chattel."

 

"Delia was a slave who was photographed by Joseph Zealy in 1850, in South Carolina. The series of Zealy's photographs was used to support naturalist Louis Agassiz's premise that Africans were biologically inferior to Europeans."

 

"162 years later, I revisit Agassiz's premise in the hopes of exposing Delia's humanity, nobility, and beauty. In exposing the humanity of Delia, I seek to open a discourse about how science, religion, and appearance obfuscate issues of identity and 'otherness' in our world."

 

----

 

"For Delia" / Heidi Fancher / C-print, 2010 / Collection of the artist

 

Music: "Budding" by Broke for Free: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Bro...

 

 

Used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) License.