(soft music) - [Narrator] "Roots, Race & Culture" is made possible in part by the contributions to PBS Utah from viewers like you, thank you.

(jazz music) - Hey, everyone, and welcome to "Roots, Race & Culture," a new show on PBS Utah where we bring you into candid conversations about shared cultural experiences.

My name is Lonzo Liggins.

- And I'm Danor Gerald.

Today, we're going to discuss how diversity, or the lack thereof in religious art, impacts our lives, our culture, and our very understanding of humanity.

- Wow, and- - It'll be a great show.

- Yeah, man, it's gonna be really awesome.

We've got two wonderful guests here today.

To my left here, is Laura Hurtado.

Laura, would you introduce yourself?

- Yeah, I'm the Executive Director of the Utah Museum Contemporary Art.

- Awesome, wow, that is a nice title, I'm excited- - Fancy to say (laughs) Bringing out the big guys today, all right.

And to our right, Melissa, please introduce yourself.

- I'm Melissa Tshikamba Boggs, and I'm a fine artist.

And I graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from BYU.

- Yes.

- Sweet, yeah.

Just some amazing art, I'm excited to see that today.

- Yes.

- It's actually a really exciting show.

We're able to see some neat things and talk about some cool things.

But first, let's talk about some historical stuff.

- Yeah, put a perspective on this thing.

- Let's start with you, Laura.

I mean, I wanted to hear about some of these key points when we're analyzing some of the historical perspectives in religious art.

Can you break that down for us?

- Yeah, well, I guess you wanna narrow the question a little bit, 'cause I think within the realm of what we're talking about, is really the historical perspective of Christian art.

there's lots of religious art out there.

And I think so much of our understanding of Christian art comes from a Euro Western European tradition, and that has inherently a cultural bias and even a racial bias on how the work was constructed and who constructed it and who authored it.

And that bias has implications in which it writes people into history or it writes people out.

- Ah.

- I know.

- It's funny 'cause I grew up Christian, right?

And up until probably about my mid 20s, when I would pray, I would envision like a white guy, I'd envisioned this sort of carpenter ass-looking guy with a beard, the passion of the Christ guy, that's who I envision.

And I had to like wake up and be like, wait, hold on, is this the guy that I'm envisioning?

Is that actually how he looks?

Or is that just in our little Western hemisphere?

Is how we view that.

- Well, I wonder about that sometimes.

I wonder if imperialism or colonization had an impact on this.

Because for example, we have an image of a Christ as very much like what you are describing, a very Romanesque looking image of Christ.

Here's an example of it right here.

For you see and you look at his nose and skin color.

And to me that- - That's the guy.

That's the guy that I saw when I prayed.

- That does not show a Middle Eastern person, right?

And so, maybe that's a little bit about why you're talking about?

- Yeah, I think that there's inherently, in how images were made, reflects the sort of colonial or imperialist practice and who was creating them, or who was authorized to make work, who were the decision makers, who were the patrons, who had the money, who had the influence, all of those sort of socioeconomic structures, were at play in terms of creating those images.

And Lonzo, you and I were talking about an artwork where, a Christian Jankowski piece, it's a video piece called "Casting Jesus," where it's a Vatican art critic and a Vatican priest, and they're sort of auditioning the role of Christ for a work of art.

And ultimately, the person they choose, is a Florentine.

And they're like, oh, it looks like this Florentine, it looks like a, which is a painting.

What they had in mind was not like, oh, this looks, he looks Middle Eastern, or this looks true to the historic fact.

In their minds, they were praying to Italian Renaissance paintings or depictions of that.

- I would love to hear your perspective on this, Melissa.

- So, Melissa's changing it.

- [Danor] Yeah, yeah.

- We're gonna change this.

- Give us your opinion about this whole history.

- Yeah, I agree with Laura.

I think we do have a very limited idea of what Christ look looks like, of what God looks like.

And it is based off of this colonial mindset that we have, and it's been passed down generation after generation.

- And one of the things that I've heard a lot in conversations among black people, is that we have to decolonize our minds, right?

Because that artwork is so powerful, right?

We have one more image, a historical image of Christ that I like to show.

This is him going into Jerusalem.

And there are more people in the artwork, right?

So, you would think, okay, this is the Middle East and you have Christ, but then there's I think one person who has olive skin color in this image.

In fact, there's like a blonde baby there and the apostles.

And it's another example of like, is this an accurate description of what these people really look like?

And does that matter?

And that's the question I really want you to, does it matter what that artwork that we see looks like?

How does that impact us?

- Oh, it totally matters, because, I grew up with a religious background as well.

- What's your religious background?

- I'm LDS, so.

- Okay.

- [Danor] Okay - Growing up as a child, I saw these images factual and no one corrected them.

So, growing up, I'm like, okay, this is how it is, and this is what it is.

And I'm gonna believe whoever's telling me this, 'cause they know more and they're above me.

So, I'm growing up thinking, and like all these people are White and God's White.

And if God's white, that means when I go to heaven, or to be more like God, I need to be closer to whiteness.

And it didn't leave any room for my culture or other people's culture, because it's taking, it's saying only this ethnicity or this religion.

- Has God in them.

- Yeah, has God in them and it doesn't lead, but you can't see the divinity within yourself.

- Right, right.

- Here's what I wanna know.

No, go ahead, go ahead.

I'm sorry, Laura.

- I wanna jump in there.

Because I think there's certain images that if you saw like a Warhol, or, I don't know, a Rembrandt painting or whatever, I don't think you would have that same, they wouldn't have that same authority.

And I think when you have religious images, you bring that believing gaze to it.

So, they have a certain weight to them where you're not interrogating them in the same kind of way you do with other images.

And that believing gaze has a certain kind of authority to it where you internally it, where it becomes like, oh, this is who this person is.

- Yeah, it's an emotional impact.

- Yeah., it's huge.

And it starts from being as a child, having an image held up and saying, this is who this person is.

And that, you internalize that bias in a really profound and deep way.

- Well, it seems, when I look at, in particular, the Mormon religion, it seems like their images are extra, like extra European and extra White.

And it seems like they go out of their way to really stamp that image in.

And it makes me wonder, what we know now about history and what we know now about archeology and what we've discovered, is that there's actually people that didn't look like that in Jesus' time and they look completely different.

Why then, knowing what we know now and knowing that these people probably didn't like that, do we hold onto these images?

- Well, that brings me to another question I was gonna ask you, ladies, does commerce play a part in this?

Right?

- Is it tradition?

- Well, tradition, but also what's gonna make the most money, right?

Does that have anything to do with this?

- [Melissa] Yeah.

- Sure.

I think commerce and, again, that bias that exists that you buy into, or that you are maybe more accurately that you are sold.

And so, that becomes part of like, oh, this is what you believe is true, then that's what is replicated is true.

- Right, and that's where you're gonna say, oh, I wanna buy that, because that reminds me of my childhood, the images I saw.

or what I believe based on the artwork that I've seen.

And that's kind of interesting.

Now, Melissa has flipped the script for us.

- Re-imagined it, and I love it too.

- Yeah, we have some images of her artwork that we just have to get on this screen as quick as we can, because it's so beautiful.

Look at these three depictions of Christ.

I absolutely fell in with them.

And they're actually three different skin tones which I love, right?

It's not like you're- - [Lonzo] You're not sticking with one, a little a little bit, yeah, all right?

That's awesome.

- [Danor] And you're giving many people an opportunity to make that connection.

And that we, had an episode on colorism, how does that impact you in terms of what you experienced in your training or anything like that?

- I think colorism is one of the results of colonization.

And the past always affects the future.

So, back then, the lighter skin you were, the closer to God you were, because the closer to whiteness you were.

And so, even with the me growing up, I would get compliments like, oh, you're pretier for a black girl 'cause we have a lighter skin complexion.

- Whereas the- - Yeah, that's, yeah.

- Now, then when you looked at artwork though, how did you feel?

Did you feel like that you need to find some way to change that narrative?

Because- - Yeah.

What inspired this?

What inspired you to start saying, you know what?

I'm gonna start creating these is that look different?

- When I started to learn more history and I started to practice more self love, I'm like, why do I think that I need to be White in order to go to heaven?

Why do I think I need to be White to be successful or closer to whiteness?

And I noticed a lot of my friends had that same problem.

Like they wanted to marry a White guy, they wouldn't wear their natural hair if they were black, because it wasn't appropriate or acceptable.

- It wouldn't lead you to success or something.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- And it wasn't the standard of beauty.

- It wasn't the standard of beauty.

- Right, right, right.

- And whiteness was the standard of beauty.

And I'm like, that's not true.

I knew that wasn't true, and I knew that images have a profound effect on the way you view yourself.

- Images have an amazing effect.

It's billion multi trillion dollar industry of advertising that we live in where we're constantly being bombarded with images.

And why would we not think that religious images don't have an impact either.

- Go ahead, I'm sorry.

- Yeah.

And our brains work on subconscious archetypal programming.

So, anytime we see an image, we associate that image with our.

I'm trying to say this in the right way.

We're associating, when we see an image, we see, we try to internalize it and see ourselves in that image.

And if we're being bombarded with the same in images or negative propaganda about yourself or your skin color over time, you are gonna have self hate or self-loathing for your culture.

- That actually makes me think of the comment you made earlier about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

It's a global church.

- [Melissa] Yeah.

- In fact, demographically, there are more people living outside the United States than inside the United States now.

- [Melissa] Yeah.

- Do you feel like the artwork, the media is representative of that in the church?

- Is there progress being made?

- No.

- No.

- Not at all.

I think they're trying to make a little bit of progress, but I feel like you can't have just a toe in.

It's either you're all in or you're not.

Because if you're propagating that you're a worldwide religion, you need to show the world in your artwork and we need to be better at that end.

- They are coming out with a new handbook that actually includes music from all over the world.

And it's been a long time coming, but it's on the way, and I think that's a step forward.

- It's a step in the right direction.

- 'Cause the music can be pretty sleepy.

I know, it can be.

(group laughs) - And that's a Eurocentric cultural tradition, the soft music and you can only feel the spirit.

- Right, relating that to piety.

- Yeah, that's one culture, there's so many different cultures who celebrate God in so many different ways and feel the spirit in different ways that we can't just have one.

So, it is a great step in the right direction.

- Oh yeah.

- And Mississippi, I wouldn't know what the calm stuff.

- I think some of that queerness that comes from Mormon image making is a result of correlation, which was a kind of standardization of images and of churches that happens in the 1980s that limited the amount of, like, this is the images you can have in a church to a set kind of gospel library.

And that had, for sure, whether intended or not, a colonializizing effect.

There's a series of papers that have been done on research on it, where you have like depictions of the international church from all around the world.

And yet they have like the same sort of standard, like hairy, there's some kind of images in the background.

And what does that kind of exportation of it's not just whiteness, but it's like a singular whiteness, right?

As defined by a set of 30 images, or as defined by a series of a handful of male and pale artists.

- But I can tell you this from an insider's perspective, they are doing quite a bit of research and doing a lot of work.

- [Lonzo] Who?

- The LDS church, right?

The church- - I'm the only non-LDS person up here?

- Well, I'm just telling you, 'cause I I've been in a lot of media, I've played a wise man in their nativity videos and things like that.

And I've spoken to people who are doing research across the globe with members of the church and they are working to correct that representation and make it feel a little more inclusive.

So, there is work to be done, but- - It definitely needs, yeah, it needs, yeah, it needs to happen because it's something that's long overdue.

I think a lot of churches need to be a little bit more inclusive when it comes to the images that they're using, because many of their members are non-White.

- Yeah, so, but- - Around the world, they have members that are non-White.

- Right, of course.

- And their children are seeing this.

And it reminds me, are you creating a children's book?

Are you doing some of that work with some of the image that you have?

I'd love to see a little bit more of your art, 'cause you did some stuff that's non male as well, correct?

- Right, right.

I'm curious about diversity in art in religious or non-religious in terms of representation women.

And can we take a look at some of her artwork that shows women and different cultures?

- [Lonzo] Look at that, look how beautiful that is.

- [Danor] This is amazing.

So, on the far right, we have a male image and then we have an Asian.

And on the left.

- [Lonzo] Yeah, so, what is the one in the middle?

- [Danor] Tell us that, yeah.

- [Melissa] I like to explore the divine feminine and what that means.

And I think as I started to practice self-love more and decolonize my mindset, I'm like, I want all women to feel, just feel that they are seen and that they're important that they are divine, because they're not often represented in Christian art.

And it's a problem.

There's like a lot of self-loathing, I've noticed, especially with darker women in all cultures, and I just wanna change the narrative.

- [Danor] And here's some more of that art to show it.

And really it's such a stunning work.

And we see things of like, sort of looks like an eve image, a nativity, black nativity.

These kind of images, what does that speak to you, Laura, when you see this kind of representation of the female?

- Yeah.

I think one of the things I've been thinking about, there's this famous image by an artist named Catherine Opie called Self-Portrait/Nursing.

And she's queer woman and the background is drawing on a Madonna kind of stereotype, like, stereotypical Madonna imagery.

And I think what she's trying to do, is to say, I have a space here, I am allowed to exist here.

And I think Melissa, you're doing something very similar, which is to say, I exist here and I'm allowed to be seen.

And that there is something at stake by making me invisible and by making my experience invisible.

- [Melissa] Yeah, and I think.

- Oh, go ahead.

I'm sorry.

- Oh no, you're right.

And I feel like now, especially more than ever, women who are artists can tell their own stories, where historically, and it was usually white male artists, who were painting these cultures, or these experiences that were not their experiences.

And so, I think we can paint our own experiences and have it come from a direct source.

- I have to say, I feel like in any spiritual oriented artwork, it is probably more important to show inclusivity in that artistic space for me than any other.

Because you want everyone on this planet to feel like they can connect with God.

Yeah, you want everyone.

- In some way.

- You want everyone to feel like they have divinity within themselves and they don't need to change themselves to one ethnicity or one culture in order to be accepted.

And.

- Yeah, it's a powerful and important message.

- It could turn people away.

- Yeah.

- I know with me, it turned me away a lot.

And it makes people not wanna be a part of a religion, because they don't feel like they're accepted.

If they can't see something that they feel like they can connect to, they feel like, well, this is just a religion for a specific race and it's not a religion for everyone.

Because I don't look like these people.

So, why would I be attracted to that religion at all?

I know that's what happened with me.

I mean, The Museum of Contemporary Art, do you guys do stuff that kind of highlights these type of artworks?

- We don't show religious art as that's not one of our objectives.

But we do have a show up right now by a South Carolina artist named Charles Edward Williams called black river.

And he is exploring religion and race within his exhibition.

- Is this at the museum now?

- It's at the museum now, yeah.

And he's looking at the notion of radical forgiveness.

- Ooh, I love that.

- I think it's a really powerful show.

And I think when you can step out of those sort of loaded biases or outside of those colonial lenses that really have profound damage and profound impacts to who is allowed to speak and how they're allowed to speak, or who is allowed to be seen, that there can be something really powerful.

- Yeah.

- I love that.

I absolutely love that.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, yeah.

And I think it could goes back to that kind of that feminist saying that you can't be what you can't see.

And I think I really like that I think it's really powerful.

On one hand, it's it's reductive, because Melissa hadn't seen these images and she said, Well, I'm going to be seen.

And I think there's something really powerful.

- And it has a huge impact children.

Like, the first thing they're breeding and looking at, they internalize things is fact and what they're taught.

And there's this experiment, I don't know if you guys are familiar with it, but Dr. Kenneth Clark conducted this experiment in the 1940s with African-American children's self-perceptions when it comes to race and ethnicity.

And they had a white doll and a black doll, and they had a black child and a white child look at the doll.

And they ask these questions, what doll is pretty?

What doll is gonna be successful?

What doll is more valuable?

- I'm pretty sure we all know the answers - We know how they're gonna answer the question.

- We got a treat for you guys, I wanna hear more about that when you get back.

- I love that idea, radical forgiveness.

Oh, that's, in the fine art world, you hear amazing words like that.

But fine art isn't just on the canvas and cultural impact goes deep, skin deep, just like we've been discussing.

And we recently spoke to an owner of an amazing tattoo parlor that shows how important culture, skin and art is to a person from their own ancient artistic tradition.

So, check this out.

(bright music) - So, I started Frost City with three close friends of mine.

Family, food and tattoos, that's our lane, we stay in it.

I am Samoan, but I'm also an American as well.

So, I like to, island urban, that's where that came from.

Tattoos are a very big deal to our, and culture.

It has to do with our identity.

These traditions are between 27 and two, 3,000 years old.

Traditional tattoos, they revolve around the three aspects of service.

Service to your God, service to your family, then service to your culture.

The aesthetics, the motifs, every little thing means something, there's nothing random about it.

I've made it my life work and study for the past, at least two decades to study a of different styles from like Hawaii, Tahiti, Tongan, Samoa.

There's symbolism behind everything, getting tattooed on the floor, who you get it done by, the order and placement of every design.

That's why I say there is some sacred geometry behind the pongs and tribal 'cause there's nothing random about anything, it's beautiful stuff.

- So, what's the most meaningful tattoo that you've done?

Something that carries a lot of weight and power.

- Ooh, there's quite a few of 'em.

I would say the memorial pieces, the face, the portraits.

And I feel, it's almost like I feel 'em in the room.

Every tattoo client that I've had, there's share some stories and stuff like that that will inspire me to change something up and put it in their tattoo, which is something we've always done in Polynesia too.

According to history, whenever pirates and individuals, foreigners would come to our islands for thousands of years, we would always give them these things, our tattoos, you know what I'm saying?

As as like a farewell, or for them to travel safety through the ocean.

People love and they're attracted to our style because it it's kinda like a body armor.

You know what I'm saying?

Everything, all the patterns, they accent muscles and stuff like that.

And I can tribalize styles from people's culture as well.

I like to do a little bit of research on where they're from.

You know what I'm saying?

So, with the Puerto Ricans, Indian.

So , I like dive into their tapestry.

We've done this with the Mexican Aztecs, with Mayans, even Japanese.

We even get some Celtic stuff, and we'll make that look kind of tribal too.

It's like our Typhon.

I didn't create these fonts and stuff like that, but I do write your story when you come to me as a client.

Being human, you can identify to the meanings of these patterns.

They represent family, they're ideas that make you wanna work harder and be passionate about things and serve your family, and losing yourself, and serving loved ones, in some crazy way, this is what makes you hold.

And this is the pongs and culture depicted in the tattoo.

My name is Fred Frost, I'm the owner of Frost City Tattoo.

- Wow.

And that just shows art is a living, breathing embodiment of our culture, our personality, our spirituality.

I just want to thank you ladies for joining us today.

- Thank you so much, amazing work.

I love your stuff.

- Thank you, Melissa, your work is phenomenal.

- Where we find it?

- You can find it on my website, Instagram or Twitter, yeah.

I just think it's important to tell everyone's stories, like you said, and represent everybody in our narrative, 'cause we're not above each other.

- Thank you, yes.

And Laura, tell us, if we wanna go to see this amazing exhibit, how do we find it?

- It's at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, which is located downtown in between the Salt Palace and Abravanel Hall across the street from Nordstrom, it's just downtown.

- Thank you so much for joining us.

- Nordstrom is awesome.

- Yeah.

(group laughs) - Yeah, sorry for the product place.

- This thing, and I need some shopping, I don't know if I'll shop there, but.

All right, guys.

So, join us next week as we discuss the growing group of black folks who identify as politically conservative, what's on their mind and what they want you to know about their opinions.

Until next time, "Roots, Race & Culture," we are out.

(jazz music) - [Narrator] "Roots, Race & Culture" is made possible in part by the contributions to PBS Utah from viewers like you, thank you.