updated: 19/12/2005
The BBC’s Trading Races ambitiously billed itself as exploring how people’s attitudes and feelings change according to the colour of their or others’ skin. It took four members of the public, changed their skin colour using prosthetics and makeup, and filmed them spending time in everyday situations as members of a different race. Sofina, an Asian student aged twenty-four, was transformed into a white woman while Carolynn, a white nurse aged forty-two, became Asian.
Carolynn was relaxed about her transformation, which required makeup, contact lenses and a wig, once she got used to it – though, at first, she found it a shock:
I found that was the most shocking and horrifying moment of it all once I was revealed for the first time. I was lost and confused, I lost my identity. . . I hated it at the beginning but I got to really like it because I thought I looked better, a bit younger. Saying that, what I am is what I am and that's it. . . The skin colour was very alien to begin with but I got used to it and quite enjoyed it. The culture was more alien as there's a lot of differences. There's still so much to learn about the culture.
Amber Sibley was responsible for designing and applying the makeup but Dave Elsey & Colin Ware (Image Creative Partnership) designed the prosthetics for the male black-to-white transformation.