Art: Race and Diversity

Celebrating Racial Diversity - Looking Again at the Colour Brown
by Fiona Nicholson

Having the privilege to connect and build relationships with the wonderful pupils and staff of Kikaaya College School in Uganda has opened my eyes in so many unexpected ways. When Madame Lydia and Mr Hassan visited PGS, courtesy of a government grant, I was challenged to look again at the colour brown with new eyes.

‘Madam Lydia, she is soooooo brown!’ declared Mr Hassan. I felt a little uncomfortable focusing on skin colour, but, was curious about what he meant. To be honest, I could see nothing extraordinary about how brown Madam Lydia’s skin was.

As a white skinned person myself, when talking about how brown someone’s skin is, I associate it with how dark, or tanned they are. In our current culture, a good tan, or being brown, is seen as positive, a ‘badge of honour’ in some ways. This is a badge that I have not often worn, being pale skinned myself with ancestors from Cumbria, The Borders and Ireland.

When I probed Mr Hassan a little further about his comment, it soon became apparent that in Ugandan culture, talking about someone being ‘soooooo brown’ meant something entirely different. It too was seen as positive, and a ‘badge of honour’, but for the opposite reason to our culture. Being ‘sooooo brown’ in Ugandan culture meant being pale skinned. ‘Soooooo brown’ was pale, black was dark.

I loved learning about this difference in perception of the colour brown. I was surprised, educated and enriched by the experience.

On PGS’s last trip to Kikaaya, Mr Peebles challenged both PGS and KCS pupils to also look again at the colour brown, by providing them with the opportunity to paint a portrait of a KCS pupil.  This was a first for KCS’s pupils, whose artwork tends to focus on the development of practical skills that can lead to employment or job creation, rather than art for pleasure, which is a luxury not often afforded.  It was a first too for these PGS pupils, to try to paint brown skin.

Both sets of pupils initially failed to capture brown skin effectively.  It required a closer look.  Mr Peebles used his phone to zoom in on brown skin; and with gentle prompting, the pupils started to be able to pick out the subtle hues and tones that made up the rich skin tone, moving their work on from the simple use of a flat, basic brown, to a greater patchwork of colours.  The picture that Mr Peebles himself produced as a result, is, in my opinion, stunning, and the colour magenta, an unexpected but delightful discovery as such a strong contributor to ‘the colour brown’.

I include two photographs taken by Mrs Sands, and encourage you too, to look again, with fresh eyes, at the richness of the colour brown, and its perception by people around our world.  


Say No to Racism
by James Chivers

No to Racism
by Eva Sutherland and Eleanor Pritchard

Half-Caste
by Demi Armstrong

Don't Close Your Eyes to Racism
by Henry Collins, James Gamblin and HarveyXu

In school, there are many casual racist comments which go about every day. These comments can vary between very small and very harsh. The victim will act like there aren’t offended but in reality they year are uncomfortable. These are very often targeted towards people of colour. They people who target the victims will find it funny and believe that the victims will find it as “banter”. The victims won't tell anyone but inside they will slowly be tearing apart whilst laughing on the outside.

Even though some of the people targeted find this funny and they don’t care at all, racism needs to stop. If the person targeted doesn’t care but someone else listening on has one of their family members of friends who know they will be affected by any comment, they will feel disheartened and upset. Year ago, a racist comment would be a shocking statement and it would cause a lot of attention. Now, it’s is very calm when it is used and people will often find these comments funny. We need to change it so that a racist comment is absolutely not okay under any circumstances. People won’t understand how people will be affected when they make comments like these. It is opposable to understand from their point of view also because the victim is pressured to act along with the joke and laugh with them. They give no indication that they may be hurt because they don’t want themselves to look bad in front of their friends.

We hope these posters can help suspects of bullying understand that they can actually hurt people without them knowing. It will also encourage victims of bullying to step forward and take the act on what they want for themselves. They shouldn't be kept in hiding and keeping silent about it when it really hurts them.

Celebrating Diversity
by Madeleine Smith


For our project we made a marble cake. We chose to do this because we feel it represents racial diversity - and everyone loves cake! I think the world should aim to be as diverse as this cake. The cake stands for mixing everyone together,  no matter the colour. We put everyone in the same layer to represent the fact that we are all equal, no one is above the other.