While most people can identify racism, colourism is lesser-known and can be a taboo topic among many communities.
Distinct from racism, it is discrimination based solely on a person's colour - even from within their own ethnic community.
After experiencing it herself, Auckland photographer Abhi Chinniah is hoping to challenge the status quo with a new exhibition.
As a young girl, Chinniah was led to believe beauty is skin deep.
"In the community, I was growing up in, you're born with dark skin and one of the first missions in life you have is to achieve a lighter skin tone to fit in," she said.
Chinniah's exhibition is called Melanin Rising.
It features portraits of people of colour along with essays written by the models detailing their experience with colourism.
Chinniah said Bollywood films perpetuate a European standard of beauty, using actors considered to be fair-skinned. They are even casting White, British actors in ethnic roles. And these naturally light-skinned actors also endorse skin-whitening products.
The industry is valued at $16 billion, profiting off colourism for decades.
Dr Anna Ponnampalam from the University of Auckland's Department of Physiology said skin whitening products can burn and really damage skin.
"Traditionally, they used to have bleach, mercury… nowadays some of the products have hydrogen peroxide," she said.
The products can also achieve the opposite effect because they make skin more sensitive to sunlight.
Beauty therapist Radhika Ram modelled for the Melanin Rising exhibition. She said comments from within her community in Fiji could be cutting.
"You look beautiful for a dark-skin girl" was one she'd often get.
In her field, she cautions people from using damaging skin products, which claim to stop the production of melanin.
Chinniah hopes her exhibition will also challenge the use of these products. She wants young people considering using them to know their skin and melanin is beautiful and doesn't need changing.
The Melanin Rising exhibition is on display at Depot Artspace in Devonport until September 28.
