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For Olivia Karas, Commentary Is About Education

Olivia Karas’ journey to commentary began as a game in the gym. Karas says that during morning practice, “I would grab my water bottle and put [it] in front of my teammates’ faces and pretend I was interviewing them.” Years later, the six-time All-American and two-time Big Ten individual champion with the Michigan Wolverines realized she was not ready to say goodbye to gymnastics after she graduated in 2019. Instead, she thought back to her knack for commentary and chose to pursue that path.

“I ended up literally flying into Dean Linke ’s DMs on Twitter saying ‘hey, remember me? I would love to get into the sports commentary world,’” Karas explain ed . “And here we are.” Karas is now in her fifth year as a women’s gymnastics analyst for the Big Ten Network , commentating at regular-season BTN meets as well as Big Fives and Big Tens. This has allowed her to stay connected to a sport she spent almost her entire life immersed in. As many retired gymnasts say, adjusting to life after gymnastics is never easy. Karas found that commentary brought her closest to the feeling of competing again, or, as she puts it, that feeling of being “high on life.”

Even though she enjoys this role, the transition has not been without its difficulties. Despite her numerous accomplishments, Karas sometimes grapples with imposter syndrome when behind the mic. Many NCAA gymnastics analysts boast Olympic medals or national championships to their names. For Karas, having graduated from a school that had not yet won a national championship when she began this new chapter, she found herself in intimidating company. To overcome these feelings, she reminds herself that her 18-year career as gymnast and the numerous accolades she earned as a Wolverine give her the credit to be an analyst.

She also knows that she brings a lot of knowledge to the table. Something Karas prides herself on is her ability to provide as much detail as possible about teams and their gymnastics. Before every meet, she goes back and watches both teams’ competitions from the previous week, so she can understand where each team is in its season. She also relies on her ability to go in-depth about Big Ten gymnastics programs and to discuss gymnasts as full humans, as opposed to just as athletes.

Of course, there is no Big Ten program that Karas knows better than Michigan. As an alumna, Karas knows she will come under increased scrutiny every time she calls a Michigan meet. Candidly, she shared, “It’s so hard. I would so much rather not commentate a Michigan meet because I have so much emotional attachment to it.”  

Still, Karas believes that she is improving with every Michigan meet. “I think it was harder in the Abby Heiskell and Natalie Wojcik years. They were my babies, I was their senior,” she said . This season, however, Heiskell and Wojcik have graduated. Now, Karas has received praise from coaches about her ability to be diplomatic and professional when she calls Michigan meets, most notably following a particularly hard loss to Michigan State during alumni weekend. 

Though it is often a balancing act, some strengths come from Karas’ familiarity with the Michigan program. “I know Bev, Maile, and Scott so well that I know exactly what they’re saying to their athletes and I can tell that story,” she explained . With her focus on telling the stories of programs and gymnasts on a human level, this is a big advantage.

Ultimately, Karas handles the challenge of a Michigan meet by expanding her perspective. “It’s hard because you want to root for your team, but you have to root for the conference as well,” she said . Taking a wider look at her experience over these past five years, it’s difficult for her to pick a single favorite commentary moment, but her love for the Big Ten comes through with each meet she calls. She has fond memories of the 2023 Big Tens, specifically because it was impossible to call who was going to win. Moving forward, Karas wants to use her role as an analyst, especially in exciting moments, to bring more awareness to Big Ten gymnastics and to hold onto that “something special” she sees in the Big Ten.

As a former gymnast turned commentator, Karas is all too aware of pressure from gymnastics fans and the gymternet to be perfect. She tries to avoid online discussions, but she takes her role as a voice in the gymnastics world very seriously. In particular, Karas loves to break down deduction discrepancies and execution technicalities. Her new perspective as a commentator has aided this. “As an athlete, I would do things on beam and think that it was good, but it really wasn’t,” she said. “I’m realizing that there is so much knowledge on the sport from an execution/judging perspective, and it’s much easier to recognize having transferred to commentary.” 

Karas, a self-described gym nerd , hopes her unique perspective will help make gymnastics more enjoyable for casual viewers. For her, the principal job of an analyst is “providing education, so the sport is more accessible for people.” Ultimately, the goal is to give viewers the knowledge they need to go from viewers to fans.

For those of us who are already hooked on gymnastics, Karas is excited to tell the story of the upcoming Big Ten championships. “I think this is going to be one of the most exciting Big Ten championships in a while,” she said . She knows the audience wants to hear more from the gymnasts competing, and she is eager to “get the athletes’ voices out there,” and tell behind-the-scenes stories.

Competing as an NCAA gymnast will always have a part of Karas’ heart. Sometimes, she rewatches Michigan qualifying to nationals in 2019, and she knows she’ll always miss gymnastics. But commentary has provided her with new opportunities. Karas explain ed that she’s particularly grateful to “tell the stories I wished commentators used to tell about our team.” 

And her advice for current gymnasts? “There are going to be days at this point in the mid-season slump where you want nothing to do with doing a three-in-a-row bar assignment or a floor routine on hard ground, but one day you’ll be five years out and wishing you could do one more really crappy bars assignment,” said Karas. “Enjoy it, even when you don’t want to, do the difficult bar assignment because one day you won’t be able to do that anymore .”

Although Karas can’t do a tough bars assignment anymore, she can tell the stories of the athletes and shine a light on Big Ten gymnastics. Since the start of her commentary career, this has been her goal, and she hopes to hold on to it in the years to come.

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Drawing on the Knowledge that Exists in Our Communities: A Conversation with Kara Bobroff

Q&a   09 june 2021 by kara bobroff, the one gen fund, it’s really important to have an indigenous education model because the wisdom of those individuals doesn’t always fit within conventional credentialing processes for teachers, school leaders, or system leaders. we need to create tribal credentialing of knowledge and language keepers. , kara bobroff, president, the one gen fund.

Q: What would a community-based ecosystem of learning make possible for Indigenous communities?

Kara: The idea of creating an ecosystem is a natural extension of what was already in place prior to institutions coming into communities, setting themselves up, and imposing a Westernized approach to education on our youth. So, I feel like this would be an opportunity to create something that’s really grounded in the values, culture, and opportunities within a given land base or community.

Native American Nations, Indigenous communities, and families, across the United States, are deepening our focus on the preservation and growth of Indigenous language programs. We’re connecting more intentionally with the land and utilizing land-based learning as a strategy for better understanding our culture and engaging different types of content. For example, using Indigenous language and knowledge to understand traditional farming and agricultural practices that served as a source for more healthy foods than what we have easy access to today.

We already have a connection to Indigenous communities across the country. We already have a call to revive and build out a focus on Indigenous language and culture. And, we’re gaining a better understanding of what sovereignty really means within tribal communities and the freedom to actually build something outside of a conventional school model, whether that’s in the K-12 public education system, a Bureau of Indian Education (B.I.E.), or Tribally-Controlled Grant Schools. There’s been concerted steps taken towards achieving that. 

We’re also addressing how to fully integrate Native American leaders, Indigenous educators, and elders, who possess diverse knowledge, into our public education systems to teach Indigenous languages. It’s really important to have an Indigenous Education model because the wisdom of those individuals doesn’t always fit within conventional credentialing processes for teachers, school leaders, or system leaders. We need to create tribal credentialing of knowledge and language keepers.

We acknowledge that a learning environment co-created with your community doesn’t necessarily need to be tied to one school or school building; it’s about the people within that community and engaging them in imagining what’s possible…

More broadly, we’re thinking about the structures around governance and maintaining the freedom to create and co-create learning opportunities, grounded in the community, which is a very natural way of thinking about learning. While many of our Indigenous communities reside in small rural areas, there are many community partners, organizations, and individuals who can come together to unite around a central idea or shared purpose. 

We acknowledge that a learning environment co-created with your community doesn’t necessarily need to be tied to one school or school building; it’s about the people within that community and engaging them in imagining what’s possible—centering on the desired learning and knowledge of students, families, and the overall community. 

As an example, when we were getting the Native American Community Academy (NACA) started 15 years ago, we asked 200 community members what was most important to them. From those conversations, three priorities emerged that became foundational to our efforts: first, college attainment; second, having a secure identity; and third, cultivating holistic wellness. 

Q: Can you talk a bit more about how this natural occurring ecosystem of learning was disrupted within Indigenous communities?

Kara: It’s important to understand the progression of how Indigenous Education was very seamlessly fused within communities before more Westernized institutions were forced upon Indigenous communities. In those environments, children were learning from their families and families were working together. That organically built out a community. This is helpful to refer to today as we plan and develop learning opportunities for our students that are grounded in community knowledge.

Then, as you look at the continuum, there was the introduction of a widespread, federalized effort to create boarding schools and systematically proliferate subject areas like social studies. Those schools were designed to assimilate native students by removing them from their culture and families. 

Then in the fifties, sixties, and seventies, there began to emerge an incredibly limited focus on Indian education, in which native students learned, for a single period throughout their entire time in middle school and high school, information that was responsive to who they were and who their families were. And, that was only if you had an educator who thought that was important. The onset of schools such as the Rough Rock Demonstration School and Ramah Day School started the movement to return to language, culture, and community-led schools and served as some of the first models of true self-determined schools outside of any existing public education system. 

But, some public education systems have continued to silo Indian Education. These examples are only a fraction of what we’re trying to move forward in Indigenous communities, regarding community-based, place-based, land-based education taught from an Indigenous perspective. Bringing that to life takes a lot more flexibility, and I think an ecosystem of learning draws on the knowledge that exists within the community that isn’t necessarily tied to a school or an institution and definitely isn’t dictated by a central source of Westernized knowledge. 

Q: For those in other local land-based communities developing their own ecosystems, what can they learn from Indigenous practices, worldviews, and ways of knowing that can inform their process?

Kara: In terms of how our work can inform others, I would first say there’s a need to focus on removing silos. Things shouldn’t be fragmented because, as people, we’re not fragmented. 

There’s a Navajo term called Hozho, which describes the concept of walking in beauty and having your life be holistic in nature. And, for our students and families, our hope is to establish a state of wholeness, wherein people are in balance and living fulfilled and healthy lives. That has to be at the center of holistic approaches to learning and education. 

Unfortunately, some educational institutions systematically remove wholeness by putting up obstacles that separate students from who they are by forcing them to leave part of themselves at the door. This has a really negative impact on their learning, wellbeing, and life outcomes. 

Second, Ke’ is the notion of how you care for and relate to one another. When we started NACA, many folks we talked to pointed to a concept that reflects the essence of different Indigenous peoples and entities in our community: relationships. We need to work towards the idea of being in balance and then use that as a natural foundation for our relationships. 

When I introduce myself, I’m Kara Bobroff (Dine’/Lakota). From my mother’s side, I’m the Salt Clan and from my father’s side, I’m born for Lakota. That immediately establishes how I relate to everybody within my own community. Many times, a student says “Awesome, I am Salt clan, too!” It helps us recognize each other and know we have a relationship and share in kinship.

The notion of an ecosystem is already alive and well within many of our systems and patterns of living. And, we constantly ask learners, “How do you build upon those things in order to understand yourself?”

In clans within different native communities, there’s already a process in place for how families relate to one another—for example, in terms of where we live within our land base and the connection we have to our home community.

Interrelatedness is a really important concept to consider when thinking about an ecosystem or thinking about relationships within any given community and how they can support a student’s learning. Honoring that has helped us to conceptualize and create a space where everybody has a role within our community. Just because you don’t have a degree in engineering doesn’t mean you can’t teach students Indigenous knowledge, or what you know about science, or about the different ways the knowledge of Indigenous science has developed within our communities. 

And, the concept that everybody has a role plays out seasonally in our culture. When we think about the seasons and going from fall to winter, winter to spring, and spring to summer, it aligns with our whole life cycle. A lot of the knowledge we have begins from that. We understand from the time you’re born to the time you pass on is an entire journey of learning, reflecting, thinking, and planning—all connected to the land. It’s a continuous cycle that’s embedded in our sacred mountains within the Navajo culture.

The notion of an ecosystem is already alive and well within many of our systems and patterns of living. And, we constantly ask learners, “How do you build upon those things in order to understand yourself?” It’s awesome to see NACA youth stand up; introduce themselves in their own language; identify who they are in relation to one another, in terms of where they’re from; and use that information to formulate their own passion for what it is they want to learn. 

Lastly, I would focus on Indigenous leadership. The organization Americans for Indian Opportunity conducted research around Indigenous leadership models and discovered Indigenous leaders, whether they’re in the United States, New Zealand, Japan, or Peru, operate from a similar set of core cultural values. We’ve passed on our cultural values in very specific ways. They are the guideposts and lenses for how we think about the world, how we make decisions, and how we reflect upon our own wellbeing and our connection to others. 

There’s a lot that can be brought in when you translate that into language because conceptual knowledge is really expanded. For example, in our Lakota language class, we focus on the concept that everybody’s born with their own potential and that’s something that guides them throughout their life. In Navajo, the way that one identifies where they are from and forms a sense of relationship is essential Indigenous knowledge. 

The more that we can draw upon those ideas in a variety of different cultures, and our various backgrounds that are already naturally in existence where we are, the more powerful our students’ experiences are going to be.

Kara Bobroff (Navajo/Lakota) leads The One Gen Fund where she focuses on identifying promising, early-stage innovations that build sustainable solutions for Indigenous communities, deepening national efforts in Indigenous Education, and supporting Indigenous Leaders poised to impact systems change. She has more than 25 years of experience in Indigenous Education, and was recognized by President Obama as one of 100 top social innovators in the nation. Kara is a citizen of the Navajo Nation.

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Teaching and schooling, Kara Lawson is a true coach with the Celtics

BOSTON — No one is talking about the real irony from Wednesday.

Sure, Isaiah Thomas’ first return to Boston as a starter since leaving in 2017 stole the headlines leading up to the Wizards’ game at TD Garden. Memories of the 2017 playoff series between the Wiz and Celtics picked up the scraps. But both of those histories are starting to fade with each season that passes. It’s been almost three years since Thomas was battling John Wall and just as long since Thomas has been donning green. And besides, Wednesday’s 140-133 Celtics victory included one subtler hello from a former Wizards fan favorite.

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Wave back at Carsen Edwards.

Each of the four 3s Edwards sank against the Wizards helped create, in their own ways, the most contorted revenge game possible — and it wasn’t “revenge” for Edwards, who has played a grand total of nine NBA games after the Celtics drafted him in the second round of this past June’s draft. Instead, it was for his coach. Because the Boston developmental assistant who has worked most with the rookie is none other than former Wizards in-game broadcast analyst Kara Lawson.

“Coming in, we knew she played and she really knows the game,” Celtics guard Marcus Smart said. “A lot of people probably don’t really understand how well she knows the game and understands it. It’s just been a blast. She has different ways of looking at things and she really, really puts things into perspective for you. And it’s just a different feel.”

Lawson, who played for 12 years in the WNBA and has worked as a studio analyst for Kings games as well as a broadcaster for ESPN, left NBC Sports Washington this summer when the Celtics offered her a position on Brad Stevens’ bench. Coaching is hardly new to her. She will lead Team U.S.A. three-on-three in the 2020 Olympics. Joining the Celtics, however, makes for her first NBA gig.

She has spent more time instructing Edwards and Smart than any other players. But she’s known Kemba Walker ever since she called the All-Star’s games when he was just a student at the University of Connecticut. She’s known rookie forward Grant Williams , a former collegiate teammate of Wizards forward Admiral Schofield, for years because the two share the same alma mater, the University of Tennessee.

“When I heard she was coming to Boston, I was excited because I was stealing from Admiral, and that’s always good when I can take something from Admiral,” Williams joked. “But it was just a super exciting moment because I was like, I have someone I actually know up there. I get to go through the process with someone who’s going through the same thing as me. Brand new environment. Brand new position. It was just good to have a familiar face around.”

Different assistants get assigned different development projects. But it’s not like Lawson is limited just to Edwards and Smart, even if tagging her to the two is no coincidence. She was a heady guard, herself, and can still shoot like few others.

She’ll scout other teams’ defenses and help during film sessions. She’ll teach strategy. All the while, she’s tried to stay out of the spotlight as much as she can.

“Her communication is off the charts. I mean, it’s as high a level as anybody’s,” Stevens said. “She’s able to communicate a lot in very concise thoughts. I don’t know if it’s all that training at ESPN. I have heard her talk about (former Tennessee coach Pat Summit’s) influence on her in that regard. She’s a special communicator.”

She’s teaching but also schooling players in the process.

“She actually used a couple of moves when I was playing defense. Like, a shimmy dribble and she head faked and then drove by. I was like, ‘Ooooh, she has something to her game. No wonder she was a bucket,’” Williams said. “But definitely made me laugh … And she kept laughing because she had me, like, three times at practice. And I was like, ‘Oh, I need to be better on defense.’”

Lawson declined a request to interview for this story, which is hardly out of character.

Because of her broadcasting career, she’s not just one of the most well-known assistants amongst casual fans on the Celtics’ roster. She’s also one of the most recognizable in the NBA. And she’s made a point to steer away from that.

She laid out some of the reasons she chose Boston while speaking to a group of reporters back in July, shortly after she joined the team.

“For me, this was a good fit,” she said. “I wanted to go somewhere where I’d be challenged. I wanted to go somewhere where I would be allowed to coach. And I wanted an organization that was going to be playing in big games.”

When Edwards drained nine 3s in a preseason game last month, reporters wanted to speak with Lawson about his development. She would do it only under the condition that questions were strictly about Edwards and not about his coach.

Now, Edwards is opening up his jumper. With Smart, Lawson has focused on shot selection and playmaking. If it involves seeing the floor, she is there to help. That’s what coaches do.

“When you’re going on a hot streak, she makes sure she keeps you down as humble but also praises you at the same time,” Smart said. “She’s very insightful. She does her homework. She really studies the game. When you’re talking to her, you really talk to her about anything and different situations and she could tell you exactly what you need to know.

“It’s ridiculous. It is. She’s unbelievable, man. She’s a big key add to this organization.”

(Top photo: Brian Babineau / NBAE via Getty Images)

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Fred Katz is a staff writer for The Athletic NBA covering the New York Knicks. Follow Fred on Twitter @ FredKatz

Kara Walker – Interesting Facts About Artist Kara Walker

Kara Walker, one of America’s most accomplished and versatile artists today, initially wowed the world with her theatrical large-scale silhouette cut-outs and shadow puppetry. Her work is provocative, powerful, and some would argue, even obscene, but it is nonetheless aesthetically pleasing and surprisingly elegant. Her work draws from historical narratives plagued by sexuality, violence, and subjugation, and exposes the lasting psychological effects of racial inequality. By exploring current racial and gender stereotypes, her work enables viewers to develop a greater awareness of the past. This article unpacks Kara Walker’s biography in more depth.

Table of Contents

• 1.1 Childhood
• 1.2 Education
• 2.1 An Early Start
• 2.2 Kara Walker’s Personal Life
• 2.3 Kara Walker’s Silhouettes
• 2.4 Kara Walker’s Paintings
• 2.5 Controversy in Kara Walker’s Artworks
• 3.1 Gone: An Historical Romance of a Civil War as it Occurred b’tween the Dusky Thighs of One Young Negress and Her Heart (1994)
• 3.2 The End of Uncle Tom and the Grand Allegorical Tableau of Eva in Heaven (1995)
• 3.3 Untitled (John Brown) (1996)
• 3.4 A Subtlety (2014)
• 4.1 Seeing the Unspeakable: The Art of Kara Walker (2004) by Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw
• 4.2 Consuming Stories: Kara Walker and the Imagining of American Race (2016) by Rebecca Peabody
• 4.3 Kara Walker: A Black Hole is Everything a Star Longs to Be (2021) by Anita Haldemann
• 5.1 What Is Kara Walker’s Art About? 
• 5.2 Who Influenced Kara Walker?
• 5.3 What Is the Significance of Kara Walker’s Artwork Titles?

Artist in Context: Who Is Kara Walker?

Kara Elizabeth Walker, a renowned and highly respected Black American artist, has produced some of the most important contemporary works of art in recent years. Walker is a capable and multidisciplinary artist whose practice includes many mediums, such as painting, printmaking, installation art, drawing, sculpture, and filmmaking.

Most notable, however, are her room-size black cut-paper silhouette compositions that examine race, gender, sexuality, violence, and identity.

When Walker was only 28 years old, she became one of the youngest MacArthur Fellows ever, receiving the award in 1997. Kara Walker’s biography continued to grow with rapid speed, and over the years, her work has been collected and exhibited in prestigious museums around the world.

Kara Walker was born in 1969 to an academic family in California. As early as age three, young Kara Walker was inspired by her father, Larry Walker, who was both a painter and professor. When Kara Walker was 13 years old, the family moved to Stone Mountain, Georgia, following her father’s work. For Walker, this move was a horrible culture shock.

Moving from coastal California, which was culturally diverse and progressive, Stone Mountain was the opposite and shockingly still held Ku Klux Klan rallies.

In this new environment, young Kara Walker endured horrific racial stereotypes and she recalled that at her new high school she was often called a “nigger” and “monkey”. To escape from this new reality, Walker sought refuge in the library, where she gained deeper insight into the cultural norms and discriminatory past of the South.

This would largely inform her work to come later in her life.

After graduating from high school, Walker enrolled in the Atlanta College of Art. Here, she developed a deeper aptitude for painting and printmaking. She felt uncomfortable exploring race politics in her work, even though her professors pressured her to do so, something she believed minority students were unfairly expected to do.

After graduating with her BFA, Walker attended RISD to pursue an MFA.

Walker was a phenomenal researcher, which allowed her to meticulously explore African American history in art and literature . This led to her incorporation of racial themes and sexual violence into her work. During her MFA, where she began her exploration in paper-cuttings and silhouetted theatre-like films, Walker found her voice and confidence that became the foundation for her successful and highly influential career.

Walker’s first installation was a critical success and led to her being represented early on in her career by a major gallery, Wooster Gardens (now Sikkema Jenkins & Co.). The installation was titled Gone: A Historical Romance of a Civil War as It Occurred Between the Dusky Thighs of One Young Negress and Her Heart (1994). Walker was only 24 years old at the time. The exhibition, which quickly became a hot topic, featured a cut-paper silhouette mural portraying sex and slavery in the Antebellum South.

Several subsequent solo exhibitions cemented her success, and in 1998 she was the second youngest artist ever to receive the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s “Genius Grant”.

Since this initial success, Walker’s works have been widely collected and exhibited by galleries and museums around the world. In 2002, Walker represented the United States at the São Paulo Biennial. In the same year, she chose to move to New York as she was given a position on the faculty of the School of the Arts at Columbia University, where her students were not much younger than her. 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art featured her exhibition After the Deluge in 2006, which was inspired in part by Hurricane Katrina. Following this was a major traveling exhibition organized in 2007 by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, titled My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love. 

2007 was a big year for Walker, as she was also named by Time Magazine as one of the “100 Most Influential People in the World”.

Another major solo exhibition was held at the Art Institute of Chicago,  titled Rise Up Ye Mighty Race! (2013). Since then, Walker has had numerous solo exhibitions, including a recent retrospective in 2022 at the De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art in Tilburg, the Netherlands titled A Black Hole Is Everything a Star Longs to Be . Several public collections around the world house Walker’s works, including Tate, UCLA Museum of Contemporary Art, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Weisman Art Museum, Menil Collection, and Muscarelle Museum of Art.

Facts About Kara Walker

Despite her fame, many parts of Kara Walker’s life are shrouded in mystery. This section addresses a few of these mysteries while answering some of the many frequently asked questions about Kara Walker, like “When did Kara Walker start making art?” and “Why does Kara Walker use silhouettes?”. Below are some interesting facts about Kara Walker.

An Early Start

When did Kara Walker start making art? This question often features in interviews with the artist, partly because of how incredible the answer is. While we don’t know exactly when she started making art, we know when she knew she would be an artist.

Quoted in a 2006 article by Flo Wilson, Walker states that watching her father work on his drawings, she knew from as early as two and a half years old that she wanted to be an artist.

Kara Walker’s Personal Life

Walker maintained a low profile in her personal life, despite her stardom since her twenties. Her first marriage, and eventual divorce, was to Klaus Burgel, a German jewelry designer and Rhode Island School of Design professor, in 1996. The couple had a daughter, Octavia. Over the years, Walker managed a consistent career, whilst maintaining a healthy relationship with her daughter. 

Kara Walker’s Silhouettes

Kara Walker’s silhouettes are among her most famous art mediums . Many people wonder why she uses silhouettes and what their significance is in her work. Walker started experimenting with silhouettes in graduate school, arguing that their simplicity and elegance eased the “frenzy” in her mind. Paper cut-outs and silhouettes can convey a great deal with little information.

Walker argues that this is exactly how stereotypes work, making the silhouette a powerful metaphor in her work.  

Kara Walker’s Paintings

As a young artist, Kara Walker loved painting. Collections like the Museum of Modern Art still house many Kary Walker paintings and etchings. Despite this, Walker did not continue to use painting as her core creative medium for very long. During the 1990s, Walker stopped painting because she believed that the medium was deeply associated with white male patriarchy. Instead of painting, Walker experimented with paper silhouettes to escape conventions.

Controversy in Kara Walker’s Artworks

Despite Walker’s continued recognition and acclaim, her work was often criticized for its use of racial stereotypes. Betye Saar, an acclaimed political African-American artist, was one of Walker’s most vocal critics. Saar, who was involved in the Black Arts Movement in the 1970s, challenged negative stereotypes about African American culture in her work, and she expressed concern over Walker’s work, saying that Walker had “gone too far”.

Saar criticized Walker’s use of imagery, calling attention to its violent and sexually graphic nature, and asserting that African Americans are being betrayed by racist images masquerading as art.

While several critics argued that Kara Walker’s art perpetuates negative stereotypes, reversing representations of race in America, others applauded her courage to expose the absurdity of these stereotypes.

Seminal Kara Walker Artworks

Kara Walker’s art has evolved over decades from drawings, paintings, and etchings, into silhouettes, film, sculpture, and more. Her oeuvre is large and impressive and she has created countless influential and powerful works. Below we discuss only a select few works that cemented her as one of the most prominent practicing African American contemporary artists today .

Gone: An Historical Romance of a Civil War as it Occurred b’tween the Dusky Thighs of One Young Negress and Her Heart (1994)

Introducing her signature style, this extensive wall installation marks the artist’s first venture into the art world. Numerous sources inspired the epic title of this work, including Margaret Mitchell’s book Gone with the Wind (1936) and a passage in a pivotal Ku Klux Klan text by Thomas Dixon, which describes the manipulation of a “tawny negress”. The silhouettes of figures dressed in 19th-century costumes lean toward each other under the moonlight, suggesting a storybook romance. 

When examining the scene closely, however, graphic depictions of sex and violence become apparent.

In the 19th century, silhouettes were considered “women’s work”, and African American women might have had access to the art form. Walker chooses this medium to revisit historical and current ideas of race and violence. Silhouettes rely on visual clues based on a person’s general and stereotypical physical features to symbolically communicate to the audience. Walker uses this characteristic of silhouettes to tell stories and to examine the pseudoscientific practices that allegedly determined an individual’s intelligence and worth based on the shape of their face and head. 

The work is full of fanciful details, like 19th-century hoop skirts worn by female characters in the scene.

The scene however becomes strange when other surrealist and obscene details appear, like a single figure being swept into the air by an enormous erection. This, Walker argues, references the violent “manhandling” of a group of people by another group. This, she argues, is still embedded within our consciousness today of how we perceive ourselves and those who are deemed “other”.

The End of Uncle Tom and the Grand Allegorical Tableau of Eva in Heaven (1995)

This Kara Walker artwork, like many other of her works, is presented on curved walls. This is inspired by the 19th-century cyclorama which offers a 360-degree view of a scene to make its viewing more immersive. This cyclical view also becomes a metaphor that Walker utilizes to suggest that the past, present, and future operates in cycles that continually grow from without and within each other. This alludes to the history of racial oppression that still manifests in the world today.

The tableau features life-sized figures create a scene of horrifying violence, including the torture and murder of slaves.

The work is a combination of fact and fiction, partly inspired, as the title suggests, by  Uncle Tom’s Cabin , a famous novel written in 1952 by Harriet Beecher Stowe. The tableau features two female figures, possibly a mother and child, who are nursing each other. Three other children are depicted circling another figure who is wielding an axe.

More surrealistic features appear when a man without pants is shown connected via a cord to a fetus.

In this artwork, the entire scene is displayed on one plane and only in black and white, flattening the layers and making details obscure and ambiguous. There is a certain morphing of figures that makes it unclear where the one starts and the other ends, opening the narrative up to multiple readings and interpretations. This ambiguity is intentional as Walker believed that all stereotypes rely on such ambiguities.

Untitled (John Brown) (1996)

Many of Walker’s works created in the 1990s featured celebrated people and events of abolitionist history, and this work is one of them. Inspired by John Brown, the famous leader of the 1859 raid at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, this Kara Walker artwork is a large-scale gouache painting on paper made in 1996. During his lifetime, white people were shocked by Brown’s aggressive actions in the name of abolition.

Brown is seen by many as an abolitionist hero. After the 1859 raid, Brown was marked as a traitor and sentenced to death.

Walking towards his execution, witnesses were astonished when Brown stopped next to a black woman and kissed the child in her arms. The event has been depicted by many artists since his death. These depictions all seemed to beautify the event, situating him as a hero and martyr. Walker’s painting, however, re-imagines the occasion that so many artists represented. Awash in sepia tones, the painting features the three figures engaging with each other, Brown, the mother, and the slave child. In Walker’s depiction, the child pulls viciously at John Brown’s nipple with its teeth, stretching it out severely.

Brown is depicted as an old bearded man who turns away from the child, but he shows no aggression or frustration towards the child in any other way. Walker also re-envisions Brown as being naked, thus taking away all of the visual markers that suggest his patriarchal power. This version of Brown seems subservient to the child, as he turns away in pain as the mother impatiently thrusts the child forward, towards Brown. It is possible that the child biting at the man’s nipple could reference slave women who were expected to nurse the white children of their masters.

Brown seems to suggest that there is a kind of inefficiency and lack of sustenance in Brown’s martyrdom as slavery was not ended by his act.

The engagement between the three figures suggests that Brown might have had a sexual relationship with the woman, alluding to how enslaved women were expected to obey their master’s desires. Walker seems to ask the viewer through this critical work to re-examine those we see as heroes.

A Subtlety (2014)

Walker’s work often has epic titles, and this artwork is no different. Referred by many simply as A Subtlety, this Kara Walker artwork has the full title of the Marvelous Sugar Baby, an Homage to the unpaid and overworked Artisans who have refined our Sweet tastes from the cane fields to the Kitchens of the New World on the Occasion of the demolition of the Domino Sugar Refining Plant .

This work is a massive sculptural installation of a nude overly-sexualized sphinx-like figure made out of sugar.

The sphinx resembles a black woman and wears a “mammie’s kerchief”. The sugar sculpture was created at the Domino Sugar Refinery in Brooklyn and exhibited weeks before the building was to be demolished. This ambitious work was Walker’s first large-scale solo project, supported and commissioned by Creative Time, a public arts organization. Walker dedicated the work to the many unpaid and overworked, laborers who worked in sugar cane plantations as slaves over the world. Domino Sugar Refinery was once the largest in the world.

This site-specific work is rich in layered histories and meanings. With its large white shape, the sphinx is reminiscent of Walker’s silhouettes, and just like her silhouette works, the work draws on the continued racial, social, and economic inequalities of America and beyond. The whiteness of the sugar is also significant, as cane sugar is naturally brown, but it had been increasingly bleached by slaves as a greater demand in the West grew for confectionaries.

Next to the colossal white sphinx are sculptures of young black boys. These smaller sculptures were made of resin and molasses, and melted away in the heat by the end of the exhibition.

The heat in the sugar refinery that melted the sculptures alludes to the horrid conditions in which the slaves worked in that space. Boys often lost their limbs or even died, as it was so dangerous to feed sugar into the mills, something that had to be done manually. The disappearance of the sculptures of the boys is a powerful metaphor that honors the unseen people and undocumented events that accompanies slavery.

Book Recommendations

Kara Walker is one of the boldest contemporary African American artists living today, and her works are among the most powerful when addressing issues of racism, sexual violence, and identity politics.  If you would like to know more about Kara Walker’s paintings, silhouettes, drawings, or other work, then the books below are a perfect start.

Seeing the Unspeakable: The Art of Kara Walker (2004) by Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw

Kara Walker’s controversial art is examined in depth in this book. The author analyses four of Walker’s pieces: The End of Uncle Tom and the Grand Allegorical Tableau of Eva in Heaven , John Brown , A Means to an End, and Cut . The book situates Walker’s life and career, and her work is contextualized concerning contemporary artists like Faith Ringgold , Carrie Mae Weems, and Michael Ray Charles.

• Provides a sustained consideration of the controversial art of Walker
• Analyzes the inspiration for and reception of four of Walker’s pieces
• Reveals a powerful artist who is questioning, rather than accepting

The author describes Walker’s de-sentimentalized images of slavery and racial stereotypes as deliberately challenging viewers’ perceptions. In this book, Walker is positioned as a powerful artist, who challenges, rather than accepts, the social responsibility strategies of her parent’s generation, whilst exposing America’s still conflicted racist present.

Consuming Stories: Kara Walker and the Imagining of American Race (2016) by Rebecca Peabody

The storytelling in Kara Walker’s art is rooted in 19th-century American history, which continues to have implications in the present. In this thought-provoking publication, Kara Walker’s visual storytelling is compared with literary genres such as romance novels, neo-slave narratives, and fairy tales. The book tracks Walker’s engagement with narrative as she develops from silhouettes into film, video, and sculpture. A critical discussion gradually transitions from the visual legacy of historical racism to the role that the entertainment industry and its consumers play in the processes of racialization today.

• Focuses on a few key pieces of Walker's
• A great contribution to the existing scholarship on Walker
• Walker's storytelling is compared with various literary genres

Kara Walker: A Black Hole is Everything a Star Longs to Be (2021) by Anita Haldemann

Featuring beautiful cloth-over-paper binding, this monumental 600-page book offers an intriguing look at Kara Walker’s intensive creative process. This book presents a panorama of over 700 reproductions of the artist’s works, including a never-before-seen private archive of works on paper created between 1992 and 2020. 

• A  New York Times critics' Best Art Books pick of 2021
• More than 700 works on paper created between 1992 and 2020
• Provides an opportunity to delve into the creative process of Walker

Walker, one of the most celebrated and prominent African American contemporary artists today, functions as a political conscience exposing and excavating the dark side of American history. Through various mediums, including her cut-paper scenes and silhouette wall installations, Walker uses stark visual contrast to depict the horrors of her country, much like Goya, to whom Walker has often been compared. By holding a mirror to history, Walker engages in storytelling about the past, the present, and a possible future. 

Frequently Asked Questions

What is kara walker’s art about .

In her work, Kara Walker highlights the huge social and economic divides in America today, which are still a product of historical racism. In Walker’s work, fact and fiction are combined in a rich imagination, often resulting in complicated and layered work. In Walker’s multidisciplinary practice, we see hints of sexual violence, inequality, and racism woven into complex narratives, which slowly unfold over time.  

Who Influenced Kara Walker?

Walker says Andy Warhol’s art influenced her as a child. Other influences include Robert Colescott, a painter known for his satirical use, and Adrian Piper, a conceptual artist and philosopher. 

What Is the Significance of Kara Walker’s Artwork Titles?

By depicting scenes from history and literature, Kara Walker subverts Western history painting and makes it relevant to contemporary society. Walker understands the power of titles to inform her work.  She uses long grandiose literary titles to draw attention to her appropriation of this tradition in historical Western painting and the significance of it in her work, which is often satirical.

Chrisél Attewell (b. 1994) is a multidisciplinary artist from South Africa. Her work is research-driven and experimental. Inspired by current socio-ecological concerns, Attewell’s work explores the nuances in people’s connection to the Earth, to other species, and to each other. She works with various mediums, including installation, sculpture, photography, and painting, and prefers natural materials, such as hemp canvas, oil paint, glass, clay, and stone.

She received her BAFA (Fine Arts, Cum Laude) from the University of Pretoria in 2016 and is currently pursuing her MA in Visual Arts at the University of Johannesburg. Her work has been represented locally and internationally in numerous exhibitions, residencies, and art fairs. Attewell was selected as a Sasol New Signatures finalist (2016, 2017) and a Top 100 finalist for the ABSA L’Atelier (2018). Attewell was selected as a 2018 recipient of the Young Female Residency Award, founded by Benon Lutaaya.

Her work was showcased at the 2019 and 2022 Contemporary Istanbul with Berman Contemporary and her latest solo exhibition, titled Sociogenesis: Resilience under Fire, curated by Els van Mourik, was exhibited in 2020 at Berman Contemporary in Johannesburg. Attewell also exhibited at the main section of the 2022 Investec Cape Town Art Fair.

Learn more about Chrisél Attwell and the Art in Context Team .

Cite this Article

Chrisél, Attewell, “Kara Walker – Interesting Facts About Artist Kara Walker.” Art in Context. November 6, 2022. URL: https://artincontext.org/kara-walker/

Attewell, C. (2022, 6 November). Kara Walker – Interesting Facts About Artist Kara Walker. Art in Context. https://artincontext.org/kara-walker/

Attewell, Chrisél. “Kara Walker – Interesting Facts About Artist Kara Walker.” Art in Context , November 6, 2022. https://artincontext.org/kara-walker/ .

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The Most Famous Artists and Artworks

Discover the most famous artists, paintings, sculptors…in all of history! 

MOST FAMOUS ARTISTS AND ARTWORKS

Discover the most famous artists, paintings, sculptors!

Project Malasakit

Change the world, one child at a time., about malasakit.

They say education is free. But in reality, one out of every 6 Filipino children do not go to school.

Project Malasakit is a scholarship project founded by broadcast journalist Kara Patria David in 2002. Despite the growing cynicism in the country, Project Malasakit believes that Filipinos are naturally compassionate. We just need a credible, concrete vehicle to channel our “malasakit”. It is our mission to bridge the gap between Filipinos who want to help and Filipino children who need to be helped.

Project Malasakit’s first scholar was a child laborer named Myra Demillo. Myra lived in a remote mountain community in Mindoro Oriental. Kara was doing a documentary on communities that have not been reached by electricity in this modern age. In spite of the darkness that surrounds them, the children of Little Baguio, Mindoro Oriental remain optimistic about their future. They see education as a light that will guide them out of darkness. With the help of some donors, we were able to support Myra through high school and even send her to college. Our budget: only 1,000 pesos per month!

After seven years of support, Myra now has her own computer and cell phone repair shop and is supporting the education of her siblings.

Shown here is Myra Demillo’s college graduation in 2006. Today, Project Malasakit has 25 scholars from all over the country — supporting the education of the children from elementary till college.

We also have outreach projects for the communities of our scholars and also do feeding projects. With “malasakit” , we can change the world, one child at a time! This is a story of hope.

Our strategy is simple.

There is a misconception that money alone can solve poverty. It is very easy to give out money to the poor. But change can never be truly achieved with dole-outs. “Magkaiba ang “pagpapa-asa” at “pagbibigay ng pag-asa.” (To give charity is not the same as to give hope.)

We do not want to create parasites out of children. We want to help them help themselves.

Instead of giving funds to the scholar’s family, we course the donation through the school principal or an advisor/counselor. The children must perform in order for them to continue receiving our support.

How can you help?

With just 2,000 pesos ($40) per month, you can help send a poor Filipino child to school, change their lives and give them a decent future.

Shades Of Meaning -- Kara Walker Uses Silhouettes To Tell Stories Of Race, Slavery, Desire, Fantasy, Identity And Power

The show that opens today at The Henry Art Gallery is a sensational stew of race, slavery, sex, desire, identity, history, fantasy, miscegenation, parody, stereotypes, scatological references, the meaning of power and the definition of oppression. There's also pedophilia and bestiality.

There is a lynching and casual violence, which is rendered all the more horrific because of its cartoon-like presentation. A young girl holds a jagged-edge knife at the neck of a woman. Another girl seems to be floating casually to the ground, lynched by the bag she has just used to pick cotton.

The exhibition is by Kara Walker, a 28-year-old African-American, Providence, R.I.-based artist who in her short career has already shot into stardom. She is also one of the most intentionally provocative artists on the contemporary scene. The spellbinding, difficult-to-digest, sometimes blatantly humorous show of Walker's work at The Henry is preceded by a notice at the museum's entry warning that some exhibits in the museum may not be appropriate for all audiences.

Though the museum says it has decided to leave the notice up permanently, it is not surprising that it is Walker's exhibition that prompted the new warning policy. Walker's work makes nearly everyone squirm.

She's had one-woman shows at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and The Renaissance Society, a cutting-edge visual-arts center affiliated with the

University of Chicago. Her work has been acquired by the Whitney Museum of American Art. Earlier this year she won a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, one of the prestigious, no-strings-attached awards commonly called "genius grants." The exhibition at the Henry was organized by the Renaissance Society and is owned by a private collector.

Walker's format is the silhouette, an ironic choice. The black paper cutouts were last popular as an art form in the mid-19th century, when they were used to create flattering, well-mannered profiles of middle-and upper-class patrons.

The 18th and 19th centuries also provide the historical setting for Walker's phantasmagorical scenes. Her images of cotton plants, Spanish-moss-heavy tree limbs, hoop skirts and barefoot slaves are straight out of the antebellum South.

Her imagery is part dime-store bodice ripper, part nightmare. This is "Gone With the Wind" gone amok; the perverse flip side of the mythology of slavery and racial stereotypes. Walker's point, to be sure, is that though the fantasy worlds she portrays come from her imagination, the stereotypes and mythologies remain a part of today's world.

Wicked humor

(Walker, who will not be in Seattle for the show because she is about to have a child, obviously has a wicked, in-your-face sense of humor, despite her serious themes. She insisted that the flier sent out by The Henry resemble a poster for a 19th-century minstrel show. Walker wrote all the copy for the faux poster, including the announcement that the exhibition was "Created Entirely By a Young Negress of Unusual Ability." The Henry has already received one call from a museum member who found the flier racist.)

Like a Freudian psychoanalyst, Walker wants to subject submerged fantasies - her own and those of an all-too race-aware America - to the bright light of day. In print, she has been quoted as saying that although she grew up in a middle-class, comfortable Atlanta home, "I was overcome by the need to re-create race-based conflict, a need to feel a certain amount of pain . . ."

Walker continues: "So in keeping with a tradition of explorers and artists who made concrete images of historic events without having ever participated in them, I set out to document the journey. Only problem is that I am too aware of the role of my overzealous imagination interfering in the basic facts of history, so in a way my work is about the sincere attempt to write `Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl' and winding up with `Mandingo' instead."

With her life-sized silhouettes, which she cuts out of the black paper used by professional photographers for backdrops, Walker creates gallery-sized installations, that, in aesthetic terms, are lovely. The paper silhouettes are lightly waxed and, at The Henry, have been pressed onto the walls of the East Gallery like a mural wrapping around the walls of the room.

Sweet on the surface. . .

Walker's use of positive and negative space is highly graphic and can cause optical illusions. Affixed to the white walls, her cutouts of tree branches literally seem to be magically suspended in mid-air. And at first blush, the installation is sweet, quaint, even funny if you don't look too closely.

In one central image a couple in fancy dress is dancing. It's dignified, romantic, pleasant - a ballroom scene from an old movie. But look again and it seems that the couple are African Americans. In Walker's world, they are slaves who've somehow changed places with the masters. Closer inspection reveals that animal tails are growing from the woman's stylish gown. Even though she's switched places with the white mistress, she's still an animal, still a slave of racial stereotypes.

In another portion of the installation a black woman, her head bound in a kerchief, turns a key protruding from the back of a black man. Tears or drool or blood drips from his eyes and mouth. He hunches over a banjo. When she winds him up like a toy soldier he'll play the banjo. He'll be transformed into a minstrel-show performer, a happy-go-lucky cotton-field musician.

Elsewhere, a young black girl seems to be drifting down from the sky in a cotton bag that's turned into a parachute, or is it a hangman's noose? Cotton balls float to the ground around her.

Over in the corner, a black man in formal, Napoleonic military dress sprints as if to battle with a shovel in his hand. The plume on his impressive hat tells us he is important. Perhaps he is Marcus Garvey. But what is he heading toward in such a hurry? In Walker's scene he is running with his shovel toward a pile of excrement being produced by a woman who sits naked on top of it.

There are two telling images that work as bookends. And they are among the most powerful in the exhibition. In the beginning of the show, an African-American woman holds a thread and needle while a young black girl prepares to slice the head off the white plantation mistress. In the final silhouette, a black woman skips lightly off into a field, a graceful, joyful image. Except that the head of the white woman is perched, perhaps sewn, atop her own.

Is this about revenge? Is it the yearning of the slave woman to become the white mistress? Or is it about a fantasy that requires the African-American woman to become something other than what she is before she can skip off into a happy life?

Walker's work is a Rorschach test for everyone who takes the time to look. Despite the graphic power of her images, she is intentionally apolitical and ambiguous about shame and blame. There is no political correctness in her work. White people are cruel, stupid and morally mangled. Black people are lascivious, dim-witted and casually violent. Everyone has an interest in bodily functions that would've impressed even the Marquis de Sade.

Those who'd rather not be confronted by such images should pay heed to the notice at The Henry's front door. Others will find this one of the most truly thought-provoking and original shows to be seen in Seattle in a very long time.

Besides tonight's lecture on Kara Walker there are several other talks upcoming on the exhibition: -- At 7 p.m. on Oct. 9, Seattle artist Barbara Thomas will lead an informal talk about the work at the museum. The event is free with admission to the museum. -- At 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 6, U.W. professor and novelist Charles Johnson will discuss his writing and Walker works in the museum. Tickets are $15, $10 for museum members and students.

--------------------------------------------------------.

More information

Kara Walker, an installation, at the Henry Art Gallery, 15th Ave. N.E. and N.E. 41st St., through Nov. 30. Hours are Tuesdays through Sundays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Wednesdays and Thursdays until 8 p.m. There will be an opening night lecture today at the museum auditorium at 7:30 p.m. Called "Pain, Pleasure, Parody: The Art of Kara Walker," it will be given by Hamza Walker (no relation to the artist), education director at The Renaissance Society, Chicago, which organized the show. Tickets to the lecture are $6, $4 for museum members and students. Info: 543-2281.

The Art and Heart of Storytelling 

Kara david speaks about the joys and pains that come with being a documentarist, and shares her lifelong desire to give voice to the voiceless and power to the powerless..

Text by Racquel Quieta Photos by

Kara David is undoubtedly one of the well-established names in broadcast journalism. In the span of her career, she has produced countless top-rating and award-winning documentaries. Her success didn’t happen overnight. Her climb to the top was slow and steady. And her career story seems to have been lifted straight out of a classic motivational movie, where the protagonist starts from the bottom and then rises through the ranks. Kara David shares her inspiring journey with GMANetwork.com, from her humble beginnings to becoming one of the most accomplished documentarists in the country, and also a founder of a charitable foundation. 

Humble beginnings 

Kara’s professional journey is full of wonderful surprises and fated events, as she never intended to be a broadcast journalist in the first place. Kara initially wanted to be a History teacher. “Ang gusto ko talagang maging trabaho noong bata ako ay maging history teacher. “So, noong college ako, nag-take ako ng  History and I realized na hindi ako happy sa library. Hindi rin ako masyadong masaya sa loob ng classroom. “Parang I like the academe, pero masyado akong galawgaw, masyado akong crazy para ma - confine sa school. Parang gusto kong lumabas, ’yung ganyan.” “Tapos hindi ako nacucute-an sa mga kaklase ko. (laughs) Wala. So sabi ko lilipat ako ng course.” After some coaxing from a friend, Kara shifted to Mass Communication at the University of the Philippines Diliman. “Kasi nung time na ‘yon , big fan ako ng DWKC,” recalls Kara, referring to the FM radio station that became popular in the ’90s. “’Yung isang DJ doon ang pangalan ‘Baby Michael’, na si Sir Mike Enriquez pala! Imagine? (laughs) So, fan ako ng WKC at  WLS FM, si Triggerman ang favorite ko sa WLS FM.” “Ayon. Kaya nag - Mass Comm ako . Nag - shift lang ako bigla. Sabi ko ‘Ayoko na mag-History, magma-Mass Comm na ko’…para sa pangarap na makapag-internship sa isang radio station at saka sa isang TV station.” Kara went on to become an intern in German Moreno’s iconic entertainment program GMA Supershow, which aired for almost two decades. She recalls, “Ang happy ko naman kasi sina Ruffa Gutierrez nakita ko , Vina Morales, Jackie Lou Blanco… ang dami kong nakitang mga artista doon.” One would think that Kara would easily land a job in GMA after being an apprentice in one of its shows. And being the daughter of renowned broadcast journalist Randy David, she should have been a shoo-in for any entry-level position in the Kapuso Network. After graduating cum laude from the University of the Philippines, however, Kara had a hard time applying for a job. “So, noong nag-apply ako sa GMA, ang in-a-applyan ko talaga ay writer. Ang problema, ang GMA noong time na ’yon, halos lahat ng balita ay nasa English. And hindi ko siya forte. “Dito kasi sa UP, hindi kami pinupuwersa sa isang lengguwahe lamang . Pwede kang mag-submit ng term paper mo in Filipino, kung saan ka kumportable.” “I’ve always written in Filipino. Talagang doon ako sanay . Doon ko hinasa ’yung sarili ko. So, hindi ako kumportableng magsulat sa Ingles . Hirap na hirap akong magsulat sa Ingles.” “Eh noong nag -apply ako sa GMA as writer, English pa karamihan ang newscast, so bumagsak ako sa exam.” “Tapos sabi ni Ma’am Marissa Flores, ‘Baka pwede kang mag -on-cam? So, nag-on-cam audition ako, tapos sobrang disaster siya, kasi English din siya.” “So, I ended up being a PA-Researcher [or production assistant-researcher], ’yun ang first job ko sa GMA, kumbaga, to learn the ropes. And, na-enjoy ko siya.” “Tapos, dahil sobrang bibo kid ako, ayon, may naging kaibigan ako na writer, ang pangalan niya ay John Manalastas – si Boss John ng News – and he agreed to train me on how to write for television nang walang bayad.” 

Kara’s hard work eventually paid off when she became a writer for GMA’s public affairs programs Brigada Siete and Emergency. In her Tunay na Buhay interview with Pia Arcangel, which aired on January 29, 2020, Kara revealed that it was Jessica Soho who recommended that she be promoted to writer, after being assigned on her first field duty by pure happenstance. Kara recalls the words of the award-winning broadcast journalist: “Sabi sa ’kin ni Ma’am Jess ‘Marunong ka pala magsulat’. Tapos sinabi niya kay Ma’am Marissa, ‘Marunong magsulat itong batang ito. I - promote mo.’” Kara enjoyed her new role as writer. The experience was, as she puts it, “surreal.” “Kinikilig ako minsan na ’yung sinulat ko binabasa na ni Jessica Soho; binabasa na ni Karen Davila. Parang kilig na kilig ako. Sabi ko, ‘Shocks. Ako nagsulat niyan.’ “So, matagal ako naging writer bago ako nakapag -on-cam. And I realized na ang saya-saya ko lang, kasi ’yung trabaho ko is what I love to do: writing.” Kara’s first lucky break as an on-cam reporter came when there was a shortage of reporters during the APEC Summit, and they needed someone to do man-on-the-street (MOS) interviews. Kara recalls, “So ang life ko sa GMA ay tuwing may nag -a-absent, ako ’yung pumapalit.”  

Kara went on to become a reporter for Brigada Siete (1995) and i-Witness (2001), before becoming a news anchor for News to Go in 2011 and host for TV programs Power House (2013), Pinas Sarap (2017), and Brigada (2019). Not only did these stints sharpen her skills, they also toughened her up as a journalist.

Stepping out of her father’s shadow 

Kara confesses that being a daughter of a well-known and well-respected broadcast journalist and sociologist became a personal challenge for her . “Ine-expect agad ng mga tao na kung ano ’yung style ng tatay mo ay ganun ka rin. “Doon sa aspektong ’yon, medyo disadvantage siya kasi parang nakukumpara na parang ‘O, bakit ganyan ang mga ginagawa mo? ’Yung tatay mo napakaseryoso, ganyan, tapos ikaw magpapa-tattoo ka?’ ’Yung mga ganun,” Kara says with a laugh. “And ayaw mo rin naman talagang mabuhay in the shadow of someone ’di ba? So, naging advantage siya kasi na -challenge ako.” “Chinallenge ko ’yung sarili ko to carve my own name, na ako ito – na hindi naman minus — pero parang ’yung lalabas ka doon sa anino ng parents mo.” “And, I think pinatatag ako ng challenge na ’yon . So ngayon, meron nang taong nakakakilala sa akin na hindi nila kinakabit na ‘Ah si Kara, anak ’yan ni Randy’, ’yung ganyan . Meron pa rin, ‘Ah, ikaw pala si Kara. Ikaw ’yung anak ni Randy ah . Wow.’” 

Creative process

Kara’s documentaries are admired for their simple, straightforward style of storytelling that tugs at the viewers’ heartstrings. Asked how she creates documentaries that do not resort to gimmicks or theatrics but have powerful impact, she says that simplicity is the key. “Nilalagay ko sa utak ko na I am a storyteller. ‘Paano ko ba pinakamagandang maikukuwento itong istorya na ’to?’ Ganun lang siya. “Kasi ’pag mas simple, mas sinsero. Wala masyadong palabok. Wala masyadong arte. Wala masyadong gimik. “Ang gusto namin ’yung pinakanatural, pinakasimple lang. So, I don’t modulate, our music is not so overpowering, ’yung mga effects and graphics sa mga docu namin hindi rin masyadong marami. “Ano lang siya, as simple as possible, para pakiramdam mo, nandoon ka rin. Kasi in real life, wala namang ‘swoosh, swoosh’ na gumaganon sa real life, ’di ba? So parang we take you with us on the journey.”

Biggest setback in her career 

Just like everyone else, Kara has had ups and downs in her professional life. “The year 2005 was the turning point of my life, kasi nung 2005 andaming nangyari sa buhay ko. Tapos isa sa pinakamemorable na docus na ginawa ko nung 2005 ay yung docu na 'Buto’t Balat' , tungkol sa malnutrition in Bicol.” According to Kara, she had wanted to help the three children that she featured in the said documentary, Angela, Jeremy, and Julie Ann. She even joined GMA’s reality TV show Extra Challenge in hopes of winning the grand prize of 1 million pesos, so she could organize a feeding program for the malnourished children of Bicol. Kara won the 1 million peso-grand prize in Extra Challenge and the docu 'Buto’t Balat' won the 2005 Best Social Awareness Program Award at the Asian Television Awards and the 2006 Silverscreen Award from the US International Film & Video Festival. Despite all these, Kara felt as though she failed, because she wasn’t able to go back to Bicol in time to help the three children before they died. “As in iyak ako nang iyak, to the point na ang sabi ko sa bestfriend ko, who’s also my Executive Producer at that time, si Lloyd Navera, sabi ko, ‘Lloyd, mag reresign na ako.’ Sabi ko sa kanya ayoko nang maging journalist. Gusto ko maging health worker or social worker. “Sabi ko. ‘Ayoko na maging dokumentarista kasi nananalo ako ng award, nananalo ako ng pera, nanalo kami sa ratings, pero wala naman kaming natutulungan.’ So, sabi ko resign na lang ako.” Kara was determined to leave broadcast journalism behind at the time to become a Social Worker and a professor. Fortunately, her colleagues were able to talk her out of it. “Kinausap ako ng staff ng iWitness – cameraman, assistant cameramen, ’tsaka researcher. Sinabi nila sa akin, ‘Kara, isipin mo na lang na ang talent na ibinigay sa ’yo ng Panginoon ay ’yung talent ng pagkukuwento. Bakit hindi mo gamitin ’yung talent mo na ’yan para tulungan ’yung mga iba pang bata para wala nang mamatay parang Julie Ann, Jeremy, tsaka Angela?’ ’Yon ang sabi nila sa akin.” After that conversation, Kara decided to stay with GMA, but didn’t completely abandon her goal of being a professor at U.P. Diliman. She also pushed through with the feeding program in Bicol and vowed to dedicate at least two episodes a year that will feature children who are in need of help.

Most memorable story

Of all the documentaries she has produced, there’s one that has left a mark on her . “’Yung first docu ko, ’yung 'Gamu-gamo sa Dilim', ’yon ang nagbukas sa lahat.” “Pagkatapos kong gawin ’yung documentary na ’yon, naging very close ako doon sa mga tao. “Nakilala ko ’yung tribo ng mga Mangyan. Nakilala ko ’yung unang scholar ng Project Malasakit , si Myra Demillo. Tapos nakilala ko ’yung mga donors ng Project Malasakit . “’Yung Project Malasakit , ’yung buong foundation na ’yon, ay nanggaling doon sa unang docu na ’yon, ’yung 'Gamu-gamo sa Dilim'. It really opened everything and changed my outlook in life. “Doon ko na realize na ‘Ay, ito ang calling ko’, doing stories about people living in the remote communities and showing kung gaano sila katatag. “Ayoko 'yung pinapakita silang kawawa-kawawa. Hindi. Kasi may beauty at strength doon sa kanilang kultura.” “Hindi man sila naaabot ng ilaw, hindi naaabot ng kuryente, hindi naaabot ng kalsada, hindi naaabot ng ospital, ng ambulansya, pero ang yaman-yaman nila sa bayanihan, ang yaman-yaman nila sa malasakit.”

Project Malasakit

On top of being a career woman, mom, wife, lector, professor, and triathlete, Kara is also the founder and president of Project Malasakit , a foundation that supports the families she has featured in her documentaries. “’Yung Project Malasakit, kaya ko siya itinayo dahil ang pinaka-hate ko, ang pinakaayaw kong parte ng paggawa ng documentary ay ’yung tapos na ’yung araw tapos sasabihin mo sa kanila, ‘Cut na tayo. Pack up. Okey na tayo, Nakuha na natin ’yung gusto natin. Uwian na’. Ayoko nung part na ’yon. “Parang gusto ko ’pag may napuntahan akong community, at pinayagan nila kong papasukin sa buhay nila, sana hindi matapos ’yung relationship namin kapag umere na ’yung docu. “’Yung may urge to just help them kasi may pain sa puso mo habang ini-interview mo sila, na parang gusto mong tanggalin ’yung pain na ’yon. “So tinayo ko ’yung Project Malasakit para meron akong avenue kung saan ako pwedeng tumulong. At para may avenue rin yung mga kaibigan ko na makatulong. “Para naman ’yung mga ini-interview naming mga bata at mga communities na nasa mga malalayong lugar, maramdaman nila na hindi rin sila nag-iisa, na meron silang kasama doon sa burden.”

Kara has seen the fruition of her passion project. This month, Kara congratulated two of their scholars who have graduated from senior high school. One of them is Bimiana Capuno, a proud and beautiful Aeta from Pampanga, who has been their scholar since she was in Grade 4. The other one is Edrian Bangngayen, a former child laborer in Abra, whom she featured in the i-Witness documentary "Pulot-Pukyutan" in 2014.

Despite having won several accolades and achieving so much in her professional life, Kara has always kept her feet on the ground. She believes one should never stop learning and improving, no matter how many awards and plaudits that person has collected. “Yung boss natin sa GMA News and Public Affairs, si Marissa Flores, siya 'yung pinakauna kong boss, sinabi niya sa akin na ‘You’re only as good as your last work’. Hindi pwedeng magpakakampante ka na kasi ang dami mo nang na -achieve, ang dami mo nang nagawa. Hindi pwedeng ganun.” “Kailangan improve ka lang nang improve, aral ka lang nang aral nang aral, kasi kung ano man ’yung ginawa mo ngayon, wala na ’yan bukas. ’Di ba sabi nga nila, ‘’Yung dyaryo ngayon, pambalot na ng tinapa bukas?’ “So, dapat ganun mo talaga tratuhin ’yung trabaho mo, na gumawa ka ng maganda ngayon, gawa ka ng mas maganda bukas. ” Kara’s definition of success does not involve counting trophies or basking in her own glory. “ Ang success para sa akin is happiness and contentment, and ’yung nakakapagpasaya ka ng ibang tao. “Kapag maligaya ka, that’s when you’re the most successful. Ganun kami (sa family). So, hindi kami parang, ‘O, napanalunan ko na ’tong award na ’to. Yehey! I made it’ ’yung ganun. So, hindi namin siya masyadong iniisip.” 

Kara doesn’t want to be hailed as a hero for her charity works, either, because according to her, she’s only a mere instrument for those in need. “Kapag sinasabi ng mga tao na, ‘O, idol kita kasi tumutulong ka sa mga mahihirap, 'lagi kong sinasabi na instrument lang naman ako. “Isa akong mikropono sa mga taong walang boses o mahina ang boses. Isa akong tulay sa mga taong hindi naaabot ng kalsada. Isa akong salamin sa mga taong hindi nakikita ng gobyerno. ’Yun lang naman ang ginagawa ko.”

Telling stories and taking action

Kara has come a long way from being a showbiz program intern to an internationally recognized and respected broadcast journalist. As she accomplishes many feats in her career, she has also managed to uplift others through her stories and her philanthropic work. It is undeniable that Kara’s greatest strength as a documentarist is her social awareness, as she has maximized the platform that she has been given, to not only tell stories, but also to take action that would ultimately lead to positive changes in the lives of many. For all the things she’s done to better the lives of the communities she’s worked with, Kara David is not just an accomplished broadcast journalist. She is a sincere storyteller with a big heart.