Rabéa Ballin In Passing

In Passing: Sankofa Project, Artist Statement

“Passers are treated historically as individual bad persons and not as part of a larger society that treats people unequally based on who they are and who they appear to be.”

– Marcia Alesan Dawkins

This project is a portal into the space of otherness. Passing is a chameleon act that has existed since intercultural contact began. In Passing explores just one facet of interracial history, the escaping of racial discrimination and social marginalization by passing as another race. Claiming to belong to a group that one was not legally assigned to resulted in taking secrets to the grave. Instead of focusing on what was gained, what happened to the identities that were lost? What of the enormous consequence of losing family and tradition for the sake of survival? What of the subsequent journeys of self-discovery and redemption? Concealing lineage results in the pull between majority culture and the antagonistic cocultures into which one is born. What is the emotional toll of slipping unnoticed into dominant society?

“To all appearances she was as pure as the purest Caucasian, and if an expert had been put on the stand to swear as to her race he would have said Caucasian”
–  Octavia The Octoroon

The focus is often on the privilege or disadvantage associated with appearing monoracial. In a climate where legitimizing racially mixed offspring meant dismantling slavery, there exist no established terms that fully encompass the complexity of mixed-race identity. While the construct of race is still mostly used as the determining factor in placing people in groups, only antiquated terms of intersectionality and percentages exist.

Moreover, accounts of passing have fascinated our culture and stimulated fantasies of happy romances despite former stringent laws against miscegenation. Stories that surround in rumor and speculation are whitewashed for the sake of romanticism. When in truth, mixed races were more than often the product of assault. But what of the secrets that make us sick? The fear of being found out and exposed often meant death. What are the psychological effects of slipping into mainstream society, deracination, internalized shame, and dualities of public identity vs. private identity?

“… the so-called black and the so-called white people of the United States resemble nobody else in the world so much as they resemble each other.”
– Albert Murray,  The Omni Americans

The portraits included in this mural are meant to be placeholders for the many souls lost, oppressed, and passed onto something they were not. This project is dedicated to the invisible, hidden, overlooked, and unreported stories of disappearing acts of past ancestors and bears the pondering of what judgments we make about others… In Passing.

Born in Germany, raised in Louisiana, Houston-based artist Rabéa Ballin earned her BFA in design at McNeese State University and her MFA in drawing and painting at the University of Houston. Her multi-disciplinary works explore the uniqueness of self-identity, hair politics, and social commentary. She documents these themes primarily through drawing, digital photography and various printmaking practices. In addition to working as an independent artist, she has been a member of the all-female ROUX printmaking collective since 2011. Ballin has served as an artist board member at both Art League Houston and DiverseWorks, and has completed residencies at DiverseWorks, Tougaloo College and Project Row Houses. Rabea currently serves as department chair and assistant professor of art history and drawing at Lone Star College. She currently lives and works in Houston’s historic Third Ward community.