“We Turn Minorities into Majorities”
Transitions inc. “We turn Minorities into Majorities”
Daniel Tisdale
At my first “look”, I couldn’t help but stifle a laugh. Boxes of “Dark and Lovely” stood perched in a way that one would see boxes of cereal stacked in a shopping market. In India, there is a similar product called “Fair and Lovely” that actually does make one’s skin fairer which, to Indian people makes you lovelier. They have crèmes of this product for both men and women and both genders have been known to stock up on “Fair and Lovely” bottles. I thought during my first look that perhaps this art piece celebrates darker skin color. Instead of associating “fair” with “lovely”, it was associating “dark” with being beautiful. However, it was only in the look again and after the guide explained a few things that I realized that this was more than just an art piece, it was a performance. A performance that satirizes how society thinks social mobility is directly linked to fair/white skin color and that any darker shade fixates a person to an inferior class. Daniel Tisdale, acting as Tracy Goodman a sales associate, stood on the sidewalks trying to sell beauty products that claimed to make one fairer subtly advocating that only being white would allow one to live a better life. There were even before and after photographs of “clients” who used the products. A particular quote from a Native American struck me and it said something like “I used to live to live on a reservation, but thanks to Transitions inc., I now live in a condo!” While some people responded in outrage, the fact still remains that a good number of people actually considered the products. The array of responses received during the performance is a reflection of how society feels about what is necessary to social mobility.
