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black-ish

  • Ilayda McIntosh

The ‘black-ish’ photo series explores mixed race identity, and the way in which ‘blackness’ integrates within it. It was imperative for me to convey that there isn’t a stereotypical ‘look’ which depicts a mixed race individual. My aim was to showcase that being ‘black’ isn’t skin deep, it’s much more than that, as is being mixed race. It’s the contradicting cultural traditions you spend your life balancing, the juxtaposing foods your taste buds go back and forth with, and the continuous search for a space to exist when you fall in between two categories. Being mixed race myself, I’ve struggled navigating my identity, as well as finding balance between two worlds. I hope ‘black-ish’ starts an ongoing conversation on how mixed race individuals can create their own space for existence. 'black-ish' was exhibitioned at The Black Experience in December 2018.

Archie Williams, 19
Jamaican, Indian and English
“I felt a need to ‘prove’ my blackness whenever it was questioned.”
Arthur Ainley, 17
Jamaican, Indian and English
“I’ve struggled with being neither black or white.”
Chad T Browne, 24
Sierra Leonean and Irish
“People around me feel the need to identify my race before I do.”
Courtney Threadwell, 19
English and Jamaican
Arun McIntosh, 50
Jamaican and Indian
“Spending my upbringing and education in a predominantly white area made be hugely aware of my difference. I felt a lack of belonging, but also a need to justify my race”
Esinam Jordan-Deeds, 21
Ghanaian, German and English
“When my heritage came into question in secondary school, people had a hard time believing it. I hadn’t felt a need to explain or prove myself before this. It was as though all I had been taught and knew growing up had been invalidated.”
Florence Ainley, 15
Jamaican, Indian and English
"I’ve been told I’m ‘not black’, but also ‘not white’ makes me feel like I don’t belong."
Luc Hinson, 23
Mauritian and Irish
“[Being biracial], means a lot of things, it means so many things and at the same time nothing, but to some people, to those who need to categorise us, it means everything.
I only became aware of my ethnicity when it became important those people. When they needed to characterise me as not their ethnicity that’s when I became aware of my ethnicity.”
Rabiah Saud, 25
Pakistani and Jamaican/Grenadian
“I was treated differently for not belonging to one ethnic group. As a result, I learnt about ignorance and prejudice at a very young age.”
Tanya Motsi, 24
Zimbabwean and British Canadian
“I felt that my identity has been affected by other people’s perception of me. I found myself negotiating my identity with others more than with myself.”
Zuleika Lebow, 28
Jamaican and Ashkenazi Jewish
“I have found myself being "othered" in every community I am supposed to feel at home in. You're neither and both at the same time. It forced me to carve my own space.”
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