We are students of Critical Race Theory (CRT) at University College London, and with this project we are striving to pinpoint the areas of inequality and underrepresentation in the visual art world, focusing specifically on prominent museums in the London area. Our goal is to highlight the lack of exhibition of art created by Black women and other women of colour. During our time studying CRT, we have come across the concept of the museum as a place in which inequality is the most evident when it comes to the depiction of art by people of colour, especially women.

 

Artists such as Maud Saulter have attempted to challenge this understanding of museums as places of oppression through her photographs of black women as muses, sources of inspiration, of which the word ‘museum’ was derived (Online Etymology Dictionary). Other scholars, such as Audre Lorde, have written about museums and statues being the symbols of the oppressors, putting people on show for the rest of the world to admire but are only seen as objects, not people (Lorde, 1974). Frantz Fanon specifically discusses the world of statues as being the “colonial world” made of marble, housing the oppressor (Fanon, 1963). The symbolism associated with marble homes draws of the image of a museum and alludes to wealth. Museums themselves are symbols of colonisation and therefore cannot be overlooked when discussion systematic oppression in tandem with black feminism.

 

Black feminism itself became a branch of feminism following the lack of inclusion in the original feminist movements of the early 20th century. White women neglected to include the rights of those who were not racialized as white in what they protested and fought for, leading to women of colour having to fight for these rights themselves. Black feminism also sought to include those that were members of the LGBTQ+ community, as they were also overlooked in early feminist movements. Specifically, in the visual art discipline, we look to the scholars of black feminism as well as the artists themselves to understand the motivations behind their art as well as the explanations for why this art is frequently under-appreciated and even entirely unseen by the greater world community.

 

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As white women, we understand that this goal is one that many before us have sought to take on and uncover. We believe that we are in no position to understand exactly what black women experience on a daily basis, nor do we fully understand the plight of those who are not racialized as white in their struggle to make these inequalities and injustices known. We simply want to shed light on a deeper issue that is ingrained into our society and is systemically replicated. We want to make ourselves known as allies and offer this information and knowledge that we have found to others who seek to do the same.