Artist and spoken word performer Kip Fulbeck, whose nationally acclaimed work explores concepts of identity and race, visited campus Jan. 15 as part of Elon University’s 2015 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Beloved Community Celebration.
Kip Fulbeck’s message was clear: Don’t let other people define your identity.
The artist and filmmaker of mixed racial ethnicity – his mother is Chinese, his father is white – offered a multimedia presentation on Jan. 15, 2015, that explored both identity, tattoo culture and contemporary America as part of Elon University’s 2015 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Beloved Community Celebration.
His visit was sponsored by the Winter Term Program Committee, the Department of Athletics, and El Centro – the Spanish Center at Elon University.
Fulbeck’s subjects in The Hapa Project, an exhibit that was detailed in the first part of his multimedia presentation, represented all walks of life. Yet the subjects possessed one shared trait: they considered themselves multiracial. Fulbeck asked the people who agreed to be photographed to also handwrite self-descriptions, which he displayed during his talk alongside the portraits on an overhead screen.
Fulbeck expressed his greatest admiration for children taking part in his project. While adults used racial identities and job descriptions, younger subjects talked about their roles as brothers and sisters, their relationships to other children, their interests and their dreams.
“Kids don’t default to race,” Fulbeck said. “Kids don’t default to ‘what do you do?’ like adults.”
A similar theme was woven through Fulbeck’s discussion of an art project on tattoos. The tattoos themselves – whether gang emblems, tributes to fallen first responders on Sept. 11, or even the Nazi-imposed number tattoo on the arm of a Jewish woman who survived the Holocaust – told powerful stories that Fulbeck said were worthy of attention.
Those stories defined their owners’ identities, too. “No one gets to tell you who you are,” he said. “You get to decide.”
Fulbeck has been featured on CNN, MTV, the Today show and PBS, and has performed and exhibited in more than 20 countries and throughout the United States. He is the author of several books including “Mixed: Portraits of Multiracial Kids”; “Part Asian, 100% Hapa”; and “Permanence: Tattoo Portraits”, as well as the director of a dozen short films including “Banana Split” and “Lilo & Me”, the latter of which he showed his Elon audience.
The professor of art at the University of California, Santa Barbara is recipient of his university’s distinguished teaching award and has been named an outstanding faculty member five times in recognition for his work promoting multiracial awareness. He was awarded the inaugural Loving Prize at the 2009 Mixed Roots film & literary festival in Los Angeles and received the Harvard University Cultural Pioneer Award in 2010.
He is also an avid surfer, guitar player, ocean lifeguard, pug enthusiast and multiple-time national champion in U.S. masters swimming.