Arts Brief: Women of Color Unveils “What is Color” Exhibit

On Monday, Feb. 15, the organization Women of Color and their collaborators’ months of dedication to the program “What is Color?” will finally come to fruition as the three-month long series of panels and talks kicks off with a photography exhibit meant to explore the central question. Member Alana Elizabeth Jenkins ’12 called it a “conversation starter.”

Opening in McCullough Center Space, the exhibit evolved out of the group’s desire to begin this important conversation.

“It’s just basically about ‘what does color mean to people on Middlebury’s campus?” Jenkins said.

“Being a person of color, what does it mean? Well, I know, from my personal experience, a lot of the time it means the same experience, or an assumption of the same experience. It’s a very frustrating thing to live through. And for the exhibit, we wanted to get Middlebury’s idea of what they think of when they just hear the word ‘color.’ We wanted to see where we’re starting from.”

After reviewing all of the photos they received, the members were impressed with the results. One member, Leslie Crapster-Pregont ’12, was particularly enthusiasm when speaking of the exhibit.

“It was really interesting to see this one kid’s perspective of what color was. He ended up sending pictures of socks. And there was something like how the colors of the socks represented time periods.

And then there was another kid who did a photo collage of hair and how it was a more abstract of color, as in ethnicity as in genetic makeup.

And there were people who sent in color as in the natural phenomenon of color, how it appears in landscape or how it appears in paint on houses or in people’s clothing. It was really interesting, because when you pose a question so open, you get such a wide variety of responses and I really think that gives you hope that people aren’t so closed-minded.”