Sculptor Sabrina Yegela ’13 Explores Art and Identity

Sabrina Yegela ’13, came to Dartmouth from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, excited to study studio art and economics. She talks to GREEN at Dartmouth about how she uses sculpture to help her explore issues of difference on the Dartmouth campus:

I have been in love with art since I was 2. My parents thought I would outgrow it, but as I grew older I got even more interested. My teachers said, “You are very talented. You should keep it up,” but it’s very complicated. In Tanzania art is not considered the breadwinner. Thank goodness I’m good at two things: art and economics.

I come from an international background. I went to a high school with people from all over the world, so I didn’t really think about color or status or race. The differences between me and my peers just weren’t at the forefront of our conversations. Coming to Dartmouth was an eye-opening experience for me. For the first time in my life I had conversations with people who saw me as “different,” which made me think about my skin color, my hair, my body type, and so on.

I explore these issues in my work. A lot of my art is about cultural perceptions of beauty.

I use a lot of fabrics from my home country—we have beautiful color in fabrics called kanga, with funky prints, and I incorporate them into sculptures. I have used my art to think about these issues of difference and beauty and my experience in the US and at Dartmouth.

I am grateful to Dartmouth and love the studio art department—I love the faculty and students of the department and what it has allowed me to do. Through my art experience I’ve learned to be a much more thoughtful and more open-minded individual in my own way. I’m more patient, more understanding of certain things because of my experience here. I understand that people come from different backgrounds and are raised differently, and I have learned that some people take time to understand certain things, and others don’t. My art has been a great clarifier for me.