Which blood colour do you prefer?
On 30 September our installation threw pop culture, provocation, and art together to discuss and challenge racism. ‘Colourism Haemophobia: Blood colour complexion’ took place in Valletta at Café Society during Science in the City 2016, the Science night festival—European Researchers’ Night.
The event is supported by the European Commission’s Research and Innovation Framework Programme Horizon 2020 (H2020, 2014–2020) by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions. Valletta was transformed with interactive exhibitions, artworks, music, talks and live experiments; it hosted science-fun activities for children and young teens, and science and arts workshops.
Our idea was to create an anti-racist message that could also be used to promote the blood donations. We played with two different concepts:
- Colourism, discrimination based on skin colour;
- Haemophobia, a pathological fear of blood.
Our installation presented the tendency to perceive and behave toward members of a racial category based on the lightness or darkness of their skin tone, with the underlying message that skin colour is quite literally skin deep.
It was a success and a lot of people interacted with the installation, during a pre-dinner drink or a beer later with the sea views at Café’ Society making it the perfect setting for our artwork.
The festival is organised by the University of Malta, Malta Chamber of Scientists and the Research Trust of the University of Malta, in partnership with Jugs Malta, Studio 7, MEUSAC, MCST, Valletta Local Council, Malta College for Arts, Science and Technology, PBS, Notte Bianca, Spazju Kreativ, and General Soft Drinks with Coca Cola.
