The Weaver

Intent & Process

From the beginning of our work creating Insight art, we have been interested in the polarizing habits of mind that divide people and communities, and there is no issue more polarizing than race.

Colonization and racial inequity are embedded in the history of the United States, and yet it is a part of our story that is too often side-stepped, avoided, or altogether denied. Right now, this dark underbelly of biases, prejudices, and violence is being exposed on a much larger scale to a much wider audience. And yet, the personal stories of how the dynamics of race affect individuals are still often overlooked. What do interactions that are knowingly, or unknowingly, steeped in a culture of racism do to an individual?

What began as a project about the dynamics of race in the U.S., has become a multi-part initiative. In 2018, we began a process of inquiry about how the construct of race impacts our lives, individually and collectively, on multiple levels - personal, social, cultural and structural. We examined and wondered about the myriad manifestations of racism and colonization which permeate the stories we tell, the truths we hold on to, and the patterns of interactions we participate in. We had ongoing Insight conversations with each other and with more than forty individuals willing to share with us. This process of wondering and questioning, of sharing and exploring continues as we create Insight art that aesthetically expresses what we have discovered and learned along the way.