How Power Looks

The plot

How Power Looks explores methods of establishing power within the historical context of the University of Virginia. This film juxtaposes Jefferson’s “Academical Village” as a backdrop with current students of color dressed in regency era colonial garb made from African Kente cloth. The students wear white face, and sing about the inception of the African Diaspora stemming from forced displacement due to the transatlantic slave trade. This functions as an institutional critique by foregrounding the power and absurdity of whiteness at this institution while nodding to the atrocities that made this form of whiteness possible. By appropriating whiteness through the use of makeup, costume and song, this video indicts the University of Virginia’s glossy erasure of its troubled history and compares it to the erasure of black history caused by slavery which UVA still benefits from today.

• Age Rating General (12 and under)
• Running time 00:03:31 mins



Whats Next?

Find Screenings Newsletter Host A Screening