Art in Heaven 2017

Bibi (12)

Aylsham High

There is only one race ...

My piece illustrates the actions of Rosa Parks and it is also about racism. My main theme is standing up for good, but I am also questioning whether religion is racist. My piece shows what happened on the bus and what Rosa Parks did. The rectangle on the left shows what the over view of the bus was before the white man mounted the bus. The rectangle on the right shows what happened after the bus driver made the white section bigger, leaving Rosa Parks sitting defiantly in her spot, even if she was in the wrong section, because there shouldn't have been sections. There are multiple quotes from Parks arranged around the piece and a short bit of information about what happened at the bottom with another memorable quote. The flecks of paint are of multiple different skin colours and are there to show the diversity but also the similarities between people, to show we are neither black nor white, we are skin colour, we are human. I chose to do this project because Rosa Parks inspires me a lot and racism is a subject I am curious about (why does it exist?) and I am also passionate about the issue. The questions I was asking were: why does it exist? And is religion racist? And as I was doing research, it turned out they were possibly linked. In the Bible (Old Testament) in Genesis, it describes Canaan (son of Ham) as being cursed by Noah. The curse of Canaan began to be known as the curse of Ham, even though it was not Ham who was cursed. Ham is supposedly the ancestor of all black people, and if people began to believe it was Ham cursed, they also believed that black people were effectively cursed by Noah, so they ought to be treated like secondary citizens, and that appears to be one of the main reasons racism may have started, and that people have misinterpreted it leading to prejudice against someone because of the colour of their skin. Rosa Parks herself was described as being a devout Christian and she had a lot of faith and trust in God which shows that if something causes people to beleive the wrong thing, others may still stick with what they believe in, in spite of what might have happened. This relates to my theme because it is about someone who stayed seated to stand up for something good, and how that went on to change a lot, which shows how small actions - defiant or not - can have a big effect.