The project will profile nine staff and students of mixed heritage, giving them a platform to discuss how their mixed backgrounds and cultures influence how they navigate everyday life.
Mixedracefaces is an organisation that captures portraits and stories of people with mixed heritage. They challenge the definition of the term mixed-race; it’s not so ‘Black and White’.
Stories are subjective, allowing each person to be open and truthful about their own life experience and opinions. Similar campaigns have been run at the UK Parliament, the University of Oxford and the Institute of Cancer Research.
Understanding the mixed heritage experience
The project aims to progress the commitments of the University’s Race Equality Charter (REC) as it showcases Loughborough’s intersectional identities and facilitates conversations around challenging the homogenisation of minority ethnic groups.
The Mixedracefaces collaboration is one of the Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Services funded projects to support the ambitions of the EDI strategy at Loughborough University.
The project is coordinated by Rhianna Garrett, a mixed heritage Doctoral Researcher investigating the underrepresentation of racialised minority staff in UK higher education.
Her previous work in mixed heritage identities has discussed the complexities of mixed identities and how categorising identities that do not fit neatly into boxes pushes out the nuances of the individual and their lived experience. This can be seen in her paper “I’m not white”: counter-stories from “mixed race” women navigating PhDs.
Rhianna commented: “I want to give mixed race staff and students on our campuses a space where we can represent our similarities through differences. It is impossible to understand the mixed experience as a collective as on local and global scales, one does not exist. But we can celebrate and empower those with identities in-between, and highlight that racialised experiences are unique, messy, and beautiful.”
Event
The collaboration with Mixedracefaces will include a wider event for institutions to discuss the images and stories that will be showcased, to begin the conversation around mixed heritage experiences in UK higher education, and to recommend actions for supporting mixed heritage staff and students.
Take part
If you are a student or member of staff of mixed heritage and would like to be featured, please fill out this form, or get in touch with Rhianna Garrett r.garrett@lboro.ac.uk by 19 February.
The project can feature up to nine participants. If there are more than nine form submissions, stories will be chosen based on who best fits the campaign. The project will involve sharing your unique experience of being mixed heritage and coming along to the photo-engagement session.
If you are interested in taking part, please save the dates outlined below for the photo sessions:
- London campus: 26 March
- Midlands campus: 28 March
Your photograph will form a series of portraits which will be released daily by Mixedracefaces as well as appearing on the University’s website and social media channels.
Portraits will also be exhibited in an event in May to encourage more discussions on mixed heritage identities in UK higher education later in the year. This will also include zine-making and other creative elements.