Ghosts, Storytelling and Ominous Figures

This final project paper reflects my graduate research based in my experience of growing up in Alabama, my family's involvement in White supremacist systems in the American South, and critical Whiteness. In the past two years, the arts-based research I have completed in pursuit of my MFA has examined family history and personal experience as it relates to identity and cultural trauma. I incorporate appropriation, photography, performance and creative writing. In making this work, I employ symbolism through specific color schemesof white, black,and red and through choice of censorship. I examinethe significance of appropriating historical images in conjunction with images from my own family history. Through my practice, I consider how this difficult work of addressing the darker aspects of my personal history can be eye-opening and therapeutic for myself as I navigate its relation to my internalized racism and identity as a White woman.