Watch Arthur Hamdani's research presentation here.
Arthur Hamdani
1st year
Media, Journalism, and Digital Culture Major, Critical Migration Studies and Anthropology Minor
Bio
Arthur Dennyson Hamdani is a first-year student at University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC) from Indonesia. He aims to major in Media, Journalism, and Digital Culture and minor in Critical Migration Studies and Anthropology. With a hobby in the Arts, he enjoys creating traditional artworks to express his thoughts on specific topics, such as self-identity. His late discovery of photojournalism extends his creative endeavours to the unique cultures around the world. Through his studies and extracurriculars, he explores different techniques and forms of storytelling to build a path to become a travelling multimedia journalist.
Abstract
This project is a self-portrait I had made to be featured in a virtual exhibition called “Say Their Names” in September 2020. The objective of the exhibition was to give artists a platform to showcase their thoughts and broadcast their voices towards the ongoing racial injustices. I, as a Chinese Indonesian, couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing around me – the discrimination based on mere colour of the skin was beyond my understanding. My artwork depicts how I felt during that time. I felt helpless and confused. I couldn’t understand how to show my allyship; I had taken on the position of a bystander.
I started wondering – If the colour of skin is going to limit our acceptance of, and tolerance towards each other, what will become of humanity when migration inevitably increases? What does it mean when our world will be condensed as a result of climate change? What does this mean for people in megacities, like Jakarta; and islands, such as Maldives?
My voice, through “The Bystander” series calls for a much-needed reflection of ourselves and society. We need to ask ourselves tough questions - what is it going to take for us to appreciate different ethnicities and races? Would it really take a catastrophe to make us realize that above all, we are all human?