“Diversity Boss, Equity Keep, and Inclusion Lite (DBEKIL) and The Art Residency are short video collage works that mock the horrors of institutional DEI efforts and crappy artist residencies the world over. Replete with sarcastic voiceover and deep analysis shrouded in a shallow veneer of internet humor, they draw from an amalgam of numerous artists’ experiences suffering at the hands of white supremacy, white supremacist structures, and/or well-meaning [fill-in-the-blanks] who think they’re doing something good, but actually could be a helluva lot better.”

– ︎ May Maylisa Cat Interview: Satirical Horror on Institutional DEI Efforts and Janky Artist Residencies with Vee Hua for Redefined Magazine

Diversity Boss, Equity Keep, Inclusion Lite
(above)

Medium: Video, 2:19 mins

Year Completed: 2022

https://youtu.be/UYUgNoViQfw

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The Art Residency
(below)

Medium: Video, 2:20 mins

Year Completed: 2022
https://youtu.be/4RVl_E76evg

“Diversity Boss, Equity Keep, and Inclusion Lite (DBEKIL) is a word play on the now disgraced Girlboss capitalism and its heavily-mocked internet catchphrase — Girlboss Gatekeep Gaslight — which draws from Live, Laugh, Love.”

– Interview with Vee Hua for Redefined Magazine

Press release:

ARTIST RELEASES VIDEO TRAILERS SATIRIZING DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND EQUITY TRAINING, ARTISTIC RESIDENCIES

Portland, OR (October 25, 2022) - Portland-based artist, May Maylisa Cat, starts off her satirical “horror” movie trailer with the narrator asking, “What would our world be like if we didn't celebrate diversity?”

This facetious question posed to the audience that not all is well in the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion department of the largest and most “diverse” institutions. Perhaps there is more to it than what it seems.

In the trailer for Diversity Boss, Equity Gate, Inclusion Lite (2022), we learn the horrifying consequences of what performative diversity can do to its unwitting victims. Outside of participating in a “No Racism marketing campaign,” one person enters “a nightmarish world of DEI training, where she must complete bureaucratic tasks like endless paperwork… to stay alive.”

The creator of this short work of horror parody, May Maylisa Cat, recently had the opportunity to discuss these satirical videos at “DIE D.E.I: A Discussion on the Horrors of Institutional Inclusion” on October 15, 2022 with co-hosts Stop DiscriminAsian and Museums Moving Forward. Support from the Ford Foundation led to a dynamic and valuable conversation on the harmful practices around DEI initiatives in toxic institutions across the country.

In her presentation, Cat likens the violence of bureaucracy to a haunted house, then points at the vast lack of diversity among Chief Diversity Officers, citing that over 80 percent of all CDOs are white. Cat makes the point that to become a CDO, one does not need the kind of experience most people would imagine.

“Did [CDOs] have community organizing experiences like canvassing and telephone banking for a movement, or wrote a thought-provoking book like… the 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah-Jones?” Cat asks in her presentation. “Oh, you just need an HR degree.”

Another “horror” trailer, The Art Residency (2022), Cat pokes fun at the unsanitary residencies run by landlords who view artists as customers. In the trailer, artists are presented “a rare opportunity: you too can live in a cramped, hot and stuffy airstream that you can’t even paint in for $800 a week.”

Why the video format? “There’s a short amount of time to present a long list of harmful practices and horrors, so I had to rewrite my notes as absurd scripts,” says Cat. “Otherwise, we’d be here all day.”