Bayete Ross Smith: Identity Challenges of the 21st Century -- The Passing Series and Our Kind of People

Bayete Ross Smith was born and raised in Manhattan in a creative and intellectual environment. His mother has a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Massachusetts and his father is a jazz musician. He attended a historically Black college, Florida A & M University (FAMU) for his undergraduate education. Bayete describes this experience as “one of the best in my life. . . being able to stand in the direct history from when our people were first brought here and being immersed in the community of intellectual Black folk was very important." He completed his graduate work at the California College of the Arts (CCA), “a white private art school.” This experience was a direct contrast from his undergraduate years at FAMU, but was equally important. FAMU taught him how to “go out into the world and exist as a professional person, as a Black person.” CCA afforded Bayete time to develop his work but he says that he also “had to spend too much time trying to get them to understand me as opposed to being able to find out what lessons they can teach me about going out into the world and being an artist. I got much more of that at FAMU.”

To a large extent, his experiences at FAMU and CCA shaped his artwork. It made him curious about identity and perceptions based on appearance and “an individual sense of self versus the assumptions that are projected onto that individual by society at-large.” He says “Who else is going to be better at showing you how to go out into the world and exist as a professional person--as a Black person--than other Black people?”

In this issue, Bayete's "Passing" and "Our Kind of People" series address his concerns and queries about identity and perception. He uses technology to play with concepts and blur the line between reality and fiction. This is most evident in "Passing" where he puts the same face on several different passports. The observer, when viewing the series, is taken through a litany of personal musings constructed from their own perceptions about the face on the passport and country of origin. Bayete thought a lot about identity theft when doing this series and questions, "Is it easy because of how easily you have access to that information or is it easy because our system has become so simplistic and relies so much on computers as if computers don’t make errors?"

For people in America, identity and perceptions are a part of the racial dynamic that evolved with the birth of this country. Unfortunately Black people as well as Native Americans have suffered the most from negative perceptions about their identity; and, most recently Middle Easterners as well. Bayete says, "It’s just part of being Black in America, it’s just part of identity." He points out that "there are certain issues that White women have that I won't have and certain issues that a white male would have that I wouldn’t have; you know, the power structures are a little different. To me it seems like certain issues are more easily resolved based on where your geographical location is, combined with your ethnicity and how much financial power you have. But there is always something that puts you in a demographic that predisposes you to having certain difficulties."

In the final analysis, no one escapes perceptions about their identity, whether right or wrong. Bayete's work is a necessary discourse that humanity must embrace in order to overcome race, prejudice and discrimination. Just like his predecessors, James Baldwin, David Hammons, Amiri Baraka and Kwame Toure (aka Stokley Carmichael), Bayete Ross Smith, through his art, challenges the construction of social perceptions and poses those questions necessary for human equity and freedom.

He is currently an artist-in-residence at Kala Arts Institute in Berkeley and has an upcoming residency in Spain this summer at Can Serrat. He is a member of Cause Collective whose recent video installation, Along The Way, was selected to be included at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. He teaches at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, CA where he lives and maintains a studio.

Visit the ODCAP Gallery to see the exhibition of "Passing" and "Our Kind of People"