dynamicafrica: Studio Portraits: “Third Culture Kids” | Photography by Atong Atem.When d
dynamicafrica: Studio Portraits: “Third Culture Kids” | Photography by Atong Atem.When did racial and cultural identity enter your work?I’ve always been making art that was Afro-centric or turned towards colonialism, race, and gender. I got into that young from coming to Australia as a migrant. You’re almost forced to confront your identity as an “other” immediately. I’m ethnically South Sudanese, but my family migrated as refugees when I was six years old after leaving South Sudan via Ethiopia and living in a refugee camp in Kenya.I remember painting portraits of my family in primary school. Everybody else used the peachy, pastel coloured crayons, so I would too. It wasn’t until a teacher confronted me and said, “why aren’t you using brown crayons?”, that I started questioning and thinking about my position in Australian culture and society. I was so ashamed and embarrassed that I didn’t even recognise my identity in the colours I was using. I made a decision to only use brown colours-that translated to exploring blackness later on in life.Your series is about Third Culture Kids. What does that mean to you?There are days where I feel I know my identity and I’m really strong in it, and then there are days where I’m like, who am I in this world? I think it’s cool to recognise that a lot of people have those experiences-not just in relation to cultural identity, but gender and sexuality and what they want to do in life. Being a Third Culture Kid, means recognising there’s a space that exists between the culture we’re from and the culture we’re living in. I feel not South Sudanese enough, or not Australian enough. I have to accept that I’ll never be both: those ideas are completely fabricated from outside of myself. For a lot of people who realise they exist in that in-between space, it’s kind of upsetting because you’re neither this nor that. But being a third culture kid can be whatever you want.Read more at i-D.Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Pinterest | Soundcloud | Mixcloud -- source link