Exhibit B Censorship- The Debate

The debate offers a platform to air your own political views on whether this kind of Live Art performance (using live people to replicate and show the horrors of what happened as parts of racial prejudice) should look address such provocative subjects. However, on the other hand it proposes the other idea that should this kind of work be allowed to be censored, although our country claims to have freedom of speech. 

Questions:

• Is Exhibit B racist?
• Should the show have been cancelled?
• Freedom of Expression?

Synopsis -
Exhibit B critiques the ‘human zoos’ and ethnographic displays that showed Africans as objects of scientific curiosity through the 19th and early 20th centuries. Translated here into twelve tableaux, each features motionless performers placed in settings drawn from real life. Collectively they confront colonial atrocities committed in Africa, European notions of racial supremacy and the plight of immigrants today. 
As spectators walk past the exhibits one-by-one, to the sound of lamentations sung live by a Namibian choir, a human gaze is unexpectedly returned.

My Opinion
I believe that the show should've been aired because the show wasn't trying to make a human zoo, which can be seen as racist, it was trying to give the impression of one to imply the horrid events that occurred in our not that long ago past. I got the impression that a lot of the anger towards the show was the fact that a white creator, Brett Bailey, was using black actors which some people felt was rebuilding the divide between the races, some white people feeling guilty for something past generations did and visa versa with causing anger within some black people.
The anger towards Brett Bailey being white and creating a show like this, makes me annoyed as people were suggesting that just because he's white he can't understand the prejudice that faced/face blacks which in my opinion is untrue as although white people may not be able to empathise, they can sympathise and want to help show the racism to make sure it never occurs again.

I felt that this show should've shown in London, especially due to London's extensive diversity,  because it is merely used as a tool to highlight what should never repeat, not trying to be racist but stop it from happening.


Both sides of the debate-
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/27/is-art-installation-exhibit-b-racist