A Little Spark

Since coming to our attention as a fashion model, Sharon Alexie has used her growing social media influence to speak out boldly — sharing pictures of her life, showcasing personal artworks and confronting issues of race and identity as a biracial person of colour.

- Terence Poh

The model, artist and activist Sharon Alexie moved to the city of Reims, France, after she turned eight. The relocation placed Alexie, who is a biracial person of colour, in a predominantly white community. “It was quite difficult to grow up in an environment where education about racism is not a priority and when it is done, it is very biased. I had a hard time understanding my identity, I had a hard time assuming it. I had this idea of whiteness in my head,” she says. She went to school among middle-class “bourgeois” peers, and finding herself unlike them, she sought to conceal her social class. “It is difficult when you are young, especially in those times, to be aware of these dynamics, and especially when you are in an environment that does not invite diversity,” she says.

When Alexie turned 15, she experienced an awakening. She realised “that what I thought I knew, what I thought normal was not… I knew nothing of this world.” She credits the person she has become to her mother, who, despite having to support her family and hence being frequently absent, invested in her daughter’s dreams. “She was always the strength I didn’t have, a shield,” says Alexie. “Growing up was traumatic for me but rich in learning, rich in questioning, rich in positive evolution and awareness.”