Of Colour

„Of Color” blurb by Magdalena Dubrowska translated by Soren Gauger

A white woman, a professor at George Washington University, pretended to be Black for years. Jessica Krug adopted a range of identities: once she presented herself as a woman of Caribbean descent born in the Bronx, another time she said her roots were Latino, and used the pseudonym Jessica la Bombera. She was a Black Lives Matter activist, and her academic speciality was African and Latin American studies.
Finally, in the wake of a media scandal, she admitted she was in fact white and apologized to Black people everywhere for her abuses. She also called herself a “cultural leech” and explained she had taken a Black identity because she had a difficult childhood and mental health issues.
The case of Professor Jessica Krug served as a backdrop for one part of Katarzyna Wińska’s video-diptych, in which the director explores cultural appropriation. This involves a representative of the dominant majority adopting, or even stealing the identities and symbols of an ethnic or national minority.
In the Of Color video installation we hear the voices of Black people explaining what this kind of appropriation by Professor Krug means to them. Why it is painful and harmful.