Statement "My suspicion is rooted in the awareness that a critique of essentialism that challenges only marginalized groups to interrogate their use of identity politics or an essentialist standpoint…[is] the new, chic way to silence students from marginal groups." -Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, bell hooks
Essentially Didactic employs a set of staged vignettes illustrating conversation around whiteness, allyship and the tensions between the two. Through the use of appropriated and original works, Essentially Didactic hopes to address allies and would-be allies of the racially-marginalized. Through the projection of oblique and overtly racialized cues, this piece draws from the everyday and attempts to straddle the line between the banal and antagonistic.
Where is the line drawn between identity politics and meaningful dialogue? What is the difference between race talk and an empathetic connection?
Bio Originally from San Antonio, Texas, Mark Martínez has been living in Portland, Oregon since 2008. In moving to the Northwest Martínez’ line of inquiry has interrogated the contemporary function of racial identity in US society. Particularly focusing on the post-civil rights era - Martínez hopes to expand upon a conversation largely left ignored in a generation that fancies itself “Post-Racial.”
Mark Martínez is a Portland based artist and 2014 MFA Studio Practice candidate at Portland State University. In 2011 Martínez received his BFA in Intermedia at the Pacific Northwest College of Art. markanthonymartinez.com
