Heidi McKenzie is a Canadian, and a finecraft ceramic artist of Indo-Trinidadian and Scots-Irish descent. During the last decade, McKenzie has been producing ceramic sculptures engaged with issues concerning systemic racial inequality. Through the lens of her familial encounter with indentureship, McKenzie encircles such specifics as the duality of bi-racial descent and the global consequences of colonialism. Her visual treatise urges the white community, to which I belong, to collectively recognize embedded racial privilege, and to work towards change. In the words of the american, Theastre Gates, whom McKenzie admires, “art and Protest are forms of political thought”.
Originally published in May/June 2021 issue No 3/21 of New Ceramics Monthly, pages 28-31 . .Copyright, New Ceramics, Berlin, Reprinted with permission. https://neue-keramik.de/wp/index.php/nc/current-issue/
