New Philly art installation asks: 'What does it mean to be white?'

'Questioning Whiteness,' a new art installation on South Broad Street from artist Tatyana Fazlalizadeh.
Mural Arts Program/Facebook

A new piece of art along Broad Street challenges white people to examine how their race affects their place in society.

As Streets Dept noted, the installation, "Questioning Whiteness," was recently put up outside the University of the Arts in Center City. The message written on the piece raises questions about institutional racism:

What does it mean to be white in a society that was created to benefit you? What does it mean to be white when black bodies are under constant attack? What does it mean to be white?

The artist behind the piece, Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, wrote on Instagram that the artwork asks a "white audience to find it's role in the workings of racism and white supremacy."

"The questions posed here are attempting to point out whiteness, to name it, to look at, to see how it is complicit," Fazlalizadeh wrote.

The Mural Arts Program commissioned the piece as part of a new ongoing series called "We the People." On Facebook, the program said the series "reflects the concerns and celebrates the best of the United States right now."


(h/t, Streets Dept)