Colloquium: Practice and Pedagogies
Rutgers University-Newark Department of Arts, Culture and Media and Paul Robeson Galleries in collaboration with the Clement A. Price Institute on Ethnicity, Culture, and the Modern Experience and the American Studies Program present the Decolonizing Curatorial and Museum Studies and Public Humanities Project’s Colloquium: Practice and Pedagogies that is supported by Terra Foundation for American Art and will take place on October 28, 2021 from Noon-5:30 p.m. EDT on Zoom. The virtual colloquium will kick off the project with a series of four panels and presentations.
The global reckoning with postcolonial legacies that are embedded into our systems of museums and curatorial, presentation, and teaching practices has been slowly pushing forward this past century, gaining momentum and hitting walls along the way. However, we are currently at a pivotal moment in which important structural changes are not only being thought through, but are happening and change is on the table. Those invited to this historical gathering are involved with this movement in the interdisciplinary fields of Curatorial, Museum, and Public Humanities both locally, nationally, and internationally. How can we take their example and build onto it, incorporating and sharing ideas so that we can move forward from a point that is not just changing our ways of doing, but more radically shifts the ways in which we even think of beginning in terms of our research and practice and our responsibilities to others and selves.
The colloquium will touch upon practice and pedagogies in terms of collections building and reparations; narrative-making, presentation and representation; site, land, and self-determination; including but not only art history, visual cultures, history, design, and the framings of care and repair and access as we build our work in our fields as well as courses and programs. This program will kick-off the Decolonizing Curatorial and Museum Studies and Public Humanities Project, building with colleagues regionally and internationally to interrogate current and possible pedagogies and practices at our arts, cultural and educational institutions and implement change.
COLLOQUIUM PROGRAM
Participant Bios
Decolonizing Curatorial and Museum Studies and Public Humanities Project
Colloquium: Practice and Pedagogies
October 28, 2021
12:00 p.m. EDT
Welcome and Remarks Chief Vincent Mann, Turtle Clan of the Ramapough Lunaape Nation
Introduction Alexandra Chang, Associate Professor of Practice, Art History Program, Department of Arts, Culture & Media / Interim Associate Director, Clement A. Price Institute / Associate Director, American Studies Program, Rutgers University-Newark, NJ, US
12:15 p.m. EDT
Panel 1 — Rethinking Collections and the Museum
Displaying Pacific Material Culture in Europe
Fanny Wonu Veys, Curator Oceania, National Museum of World Cultures (an umbrella organization comprising the Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam; the Museum Volkenkunde, Leiden; the Afrika Museum, Berg en Dal; and the Wereldmuseum, Rotterdam), the Netherlands
Rethinking the Zimmerli Museum: from creating the DEI+J committee, to collections and reinstallations
Donna Gustafson, Interim Director and Curator/Mellon Director for Academic Programs, Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, US
Reimagining Museum Narratives in the 21st Century
Michelle Yun Mapplethorpe, Vice President for Global Artistic Programs and Director of Asia Society Museum, Asia Society, New York, NY, US
Remaking the canon of American art on multiple fronts
Tricia Bloom, Curator of American Art, The Newark Museum of Art, Newark, NJ, US
Teaching Rutgers Students in The Newark Museum of Art
Alex Seggerman, Assistant Professor, Art History Program, Department of Arts, Culture & Media, Rutgers University-Newark, Newark, NJ, US
Moderator: John Tain, Head of Research, Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong
1:15 p.m. EDT
Panel 2 — Care, Curation, and Community
Critical Race Museology | Expanding Care
Alice Ming Wai Jim, Professor and Concordia University Research Chair in Ethnocultural Art Histories, Concordia University, Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Guelmiehdahke – curatorial practice and a duty of care
Liisa-Rávná Finbog, Sámi archaeologist and museologist from Oslo/Vaapste/Skánit and Post-doc on Indigenous methodologies and aesthetic practices, Tampere University, Finland
Resurgence and Solidarity:
Curating Togetherness towards Indigenous Women’s Art and Sovereignty in Taiwan and Beyond
Biung Ismahasan, Taiwanese Indigenous Bunun Nation curator, artist and researcher, Taipei, Taiwan
Collections / Offerings
Adriel Luis, Curator of Digital and Emerging Practice, Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, US
Discussant: Annie Jael Kwan, University of the Arts, London, KASK School of Arts, and Royal College of Art
Moderator: Alexandra Chang, Associate Professor of Practice, Rutgers University-Newark, NJ, US
2:15 p.m. EDT
Artist Presentation
kate hers-RHEE (이미래/李未來), Independent Artist, Berlin and Sacramento
On her project Books and Things: The Studiolo of kate-hers RHEE
2:30 p.m. EDT
Panel 3 — Curatorial Practices
Curating African Art In and Out of the Continent: the 2019 Lubumbashi Biennale (DRC) and Beyond
Sandrine Colard, Assistant Professor of Art History, Rutgers University-Newark, NJ US
Curating Visual Arts of/after Indentureship
Andil Gosine, Professor of Environmental Arts and Justice, York University and Guest Curator, Art Museum of the Americas, Ford Foundation Gallery
Harvests: Great Ocean Curatorial Practice
Léuli Eshrāghi, Curatorial Researcher in Residence, University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane, Australia / Curator, TarraWarra Biennial 2023, TarraWarra Museum of Art, Healesville, Australia
Minor Curating: Art and Anthropology after the World Museum
Jonas Tinius, ERC Minor Universality, Saarland University / CARMAH, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany
Discussant: Paul Goodwin, independent curator, lecturer and urban theorist / Director, Research Centre for Transnational Art, Identity and Nation, University of the Arts, Chelsea, London, England
Moderator: Kate Doyle, Assistant Professor of Music, Department of Arts, Culture & Media, Rutgers University-Newark, NJ, US
3:30 p.m. EDT
Panel 4 — Public Humanities and Redress
De (Colonizing + Eugenics) as Curricular Praxis and Transitional Justice
Jack Tchen, Inaugural Clement A. Price Professor of Public History and Humanities and Director of the Price Institute at Rutgers – Newark, NJ, US
Illuminating Ghosts- Excavating Black Stories in Museums & Public Memory
Lauren O’Brien, PhD Candidate, Rutgers American Studies Program, NJ, US
Just Futures, Reparations, and the Archive
Mark Krasovic, Associate Professor of History and American Studies, Rutgers University-Newark, NJ, US
Design Education & Community / Publicly Engaged Design Education > Forging a Design Sense
Chantal Fischzang, Assistant Professor & Program Coordinator, Graphic Design Program, Arts, Culture & Media Department / Co-Director, Visual Means at Express Newark / Co-Director, Design Consortium at Express Newark, Rutgers University-Newark, NJ, US
Landscapes as Living Archives: Transdisciplinary approaches to place-based public scholarship
Amir Sheikh, Curatorial Associate, Burke Museum, University of Washington / Spatial Research Manager, Public History Project
Moderated by: Liz Ševčenko — Director, Humanities Action Lab, Rutgers University-Newark, NJ, US
4:30 p.m. EDT
Paul Robeson Galleries with Anonda Bell, Director & Chief Curator, Paul Robeson Galleries, Express Newark, Rutgers University – Newark, NJ
4:40 p.m. EDT
Concluding Remarks and Group Thoughts
5:00 p.m. EDT
Online Optional Discussion time on Zoom — Thematic Breakout Rooms
5:30 p.m. EDT
End of event
***
Advisors to the colloquium Kate Doyle, Mary Rizzo, and Liz Ševčenko.
Special thanks to 2021 GAX Virtual Working Session on Decolonizing Pedagogies participants and presenters and Sharon Corwin, Carrie Haslett, Amy Gunderson, Tessa Mazor, Ned Drew, Paul Sternberger, Lacey Kohutich, Kasia Proszowski, Reuel Melbin, Jack Tchen, Claudia Sepulveda, Crystal Robinson, Kyle Riismandel, Sonia Espinet, Abigail Allen, Irene O’Brien, Christopher Zraly, Alon Hawkins, Nicole Wesen, and RUiTV.