AAPR: Arts Against PostRacialism
Blackface refers to the act of darkening one’s skin in an attempt to impersonate Black people. Blackface has a significant history in Canada in the form of blackface minstrelsy, and blackface acts persist in Canada today. In their juxtaposing of racial expression with claims to racial transcendence, they are a manifestation of Canadian postracialism. The Arts Against Postracialism: Strengthening Resistance Against Contemporary Canadian Blackface is a SSHRC-funded knowledge mobilization initiative -led by Dr. Philip Howard (McGill University, Department of Integrated Studies in Education) in collaboration with artist/curator Camille Turner- that challenges blackface and postracialism by supporting efforts to challenge them.
This initiative builds on Howard’s earlier research that investigated instances of blackface as they occur in the contemporary moment in Canada, and which argues that this problematic phenomenon is rooted in Canadian settler-colonial relations in their anti-black iterations.
