Thursday, October 22nd at 5pm PST
40 minute talk followed by 30 minutes of public conversation broadcast live at thelab.org
RSVP HERE FOR ZOOM LINK

What are the ethical, educational, and aesthetic responsibilities of the museum in the age of falling monuments to colonialism and the Black Lives Matter movement? What is the political and social obligation of the institution to publics' contesting demands to "decolonize" or foreground diversity and inclusion, and also to prioritize the historical canon? Considering expressed commitments to addressing racial injustice, we will discuss the present role of institutionality from monuments to public education to staff treatment to archival collections to exhibitions, and whether these institutions are able to keep pace with and sufficiently address rapidly changing political conditions.

Nicholas Mirzoeff is a visual activist, working at the intersection of politics, race and global/visual culture. In 2020-21 he is ACLS/Mellon Scholar and Society fellow in residence at the Magnum Foundation, New York, on the issue of "Visual Politics and Practices of Whiteness." Among his many publications, The Right to Look: A Counterhistory of Visuality (2011) won the Anne Friedberg Award for Innovative Scholarship from the Society of Cinema and Media Studies in 2013. How To See The World was published by Pelican in the UK (2015) and by Basic Books in the US (2016). It has been translated into ten languages and was a New Scientist Top Ten Book of the Year for 2015. The Appearance of Black Lives Matter was published in 2017 as a free e-book, and in 2018 as a limited edition print book with the art project “The Bad Air Smelled Of Roses” by Carl Pope and a poem by Karen Pope, both by NAME Publications, Miami.

Since the 2017 events Charlottesville, he has been active in the movement to take down statues commemorating settler colonialism and/or white supremacy and convened the collaborative syllabus All The Monuments Must Fall, fully revised after the 2020 events. He curated “Decolonizing Appearance,” an exhibit at the Center for Art Migration Politics (September 2018-March 2019). A frequent blogger and writer, especially for the art magazine Hyperallergic, his work has appeared in the Nation, the New York Times, Frieze, the Guardian, Time and The New Republic.

Zoé Samudzi is a doctoral candidate in Medical Sociology at the University of California, San Francisco. Her research engages colonial biomedicine, visuality, German colonialism, and the 1904-1908 Herero and Nama genocide in present-day Namibia. Her writing has appeared in The New Inquiry, The New Republic, Art in America, Hyperallergic, and Arts.Black, and she is a contributing writer at Jewish Currents. Along with William C. Anderson, she is the co-author of As Black as Resistance: Finding the Conditions for Our Liberation (AK Press).

The Forum is an experiment in creating discourse within the context of isolation. Art creates a space for reconsidering our knowledge across various social and professional fields. It asks us: Why do we perceive things the way we do? What are we living for? How can we reimagine our relationships to the human and non-human world? The Forum proposes that the project of freedom is a project of making a world with others. So, we invite you to help us answer: what can we do now?

Please bring your ideas, proposals, questions to discuss following the talk.

Image: Removal of the statue of Cecil Rhodes (sculptor: Marion Walgate) from the campus of the University of Cape Town, 9 April 2015. Photo by Desmond Bowles.

Thursday, October 1st at 6pm PST
90 minutes of conversation broadcast at thelab.org
RSVP HERE FOR ZOOM LINK

André & Sadie checking in during a moment of grief, stillness and possibility, with discussion moderated by George McCalman.

André D. Singleton is a newly Bay Area (New York City prior) based educator, human rights activist, and multi-disciplinary artist born in Kansas City, MO. Widely known as the co-creator of ‘The Very Black Project,’ a social awareness initiative that celebrates the African Diaspora, he is a thread within a fabric of pioneers on a mission to unite people from an abundance of cultural backgrounds. He’s a Stage IV Hodgkins survivor (remission since 2005). As an artist, survivor and gay man he has been empowered to approach life with a fierce determination to be free and embracing of his truth. Singleton’s work continues to inspire courage, pride, and vulnerability, encouraging people all over the world to respect one another so that our communities might remain enriching for us all.

Sadie Barnette is from Oakland, CA and holds a BFA from CalArts and an MFA from University of California, San Diego. Her artwork reveals quintessential American truths through exploration of her own family history. Recent projects include the reclamation of a 500-page FBI surveillance file amassed on her father during his time with the Black Panther Party and her interactive reimagining of his bar — San Francisco's first Black-owned gay bar. She has been awarded grants and residencies by the Studio Museum in Harlem, Artadia, Art Matters, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, the Headlands Center for the Arts, and the Carmago Foundation in France. She has enjoyed solo shows in the following public institutions: ICA Los Angeles, The Lab and the Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco; MCA San Diego, CA; and the Manetti Shrem Museum, UC Davis. Her work is in the permanent collections of: the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); Brooklyn Museum, NY; Guggenheim Museum, NY; and the Berkeley Art Museum, CA. Barnette is represented by Charlie James Gallery in Los Angeles and Jessica Silverman in San Francisco.

After 14 years as a creative director in the magazine industry, working at highly respected magazines like Entertainment Weekly, Mother Jones and Readade, George McCalman opened the doors to his own practice in 2011. MCCALMAN.CO is a design studio built on the foundation of editorial expertise, bold brand messaging, and personal relationships; his editorial background gives him a unique perspective on commercial branding. In 2016, he recalibrated his professional life by embracing the artists’ path. He now incorporates all aspects of his creative interests into his studio practice, working as a visual journalist, commercial illustrator, and fine artist; in addition to his various branding projects. He is a culture columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. His first book ‘Illustrated Black History’ will be published summer 2021 by Harper Collins.

The Forum is a bi-weekly experiment in creating discourse within the context of isolation. Art creates a space for reconsidering our knowledge across various social and professional fields. It asks us: Why do we perceive things the way we do? What are we living for? How can we reimagine our relationships to the human and non-human world? The Forum proposes that the project of freedom is a project of making a world with others. So, we invite you to help us answer: what can we do now?

Please bring your ideas, proposals, questions to discuss following the talk.