The post Technocolonialism: When Technology for Good is Harmful was curated by information for practice.

Event Begins: Wednesday, November 13, 2024 11:00am
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)

Organized as a response to the Museum’s recent acquisition of Titus Kaphar’s Flay (James Madison), this upcoming reinstallation of one of our most prominent gallery spaces forces us to grapple with our collection of European and American art, 1650-1850.

In recent times, growing public awareness of the continued reverberations of the legacy of slavery and colonization has challenged museums to examine the uncomfortable histories contained in our collections, and challenged the public to probe the choices we make about those stories. Choices about which artists you see in our galleries, choices about what relevant facts we share about the works, and choices about what - out of an infinite number of options - we don’t say about them.

Pieces in this exhibition were made at a time when the world came to be shaped by the ideologies of colonial expansion and Western domination. And yet, that history and the stories of those marginalized do not readily appear in the still lives and portraits on display here. By grappling with what is visible and what remains hidden, we are forced to examine whose stories and histories are prioritized and why.  

In this online exhibition, you can explore our efforts to deeply question the Museum’s collection and our own past complicity in favoring colonial voices. In the Museum gallery, which will open in early 2021, you’ll be able to experience the changes we’re making to the physical space to highlight a more honest version of European and American history. 

By challenging our own practice, and continuing to add to what we know and what we write about the works we display, UMMA tells a more complex and more complete story of this nation - one that unsettles, and fails to settle for, simple narratives. 

“Invisible things are not necessarily ‘not there’.... Certain absences are so stressed, so ornate, so planned, they call attention to themselves; arrest us with intentionality and purpose, like neighborhoods that are defined by the population held away from them.” 

— Toni Morrison

Lead support for Unsettling Histories: Legacies of Slavery and Colonialism is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, the U-M Arts Initiative, and the Susan and Richard Gutow Endowed Fund.
 

“Chigumadzi argues that within the liberal international order, it is “reasonable” and “workable” to struggle to end apartheid and racial segregation, while it is “unreasonable” and “unworkable” to struggle to end settler colonialism and indigenous land dispossession. In arguing that apartheid is overrepresented in the International Left’s racial discourse and historiography, Chigumadzi draws from generations of Black South African political activists, philosophers, and historians—most notably from the Pan Africanist-Black Consciousness Tradition. These traditions critique apartheid’s relatively short 54 years of institutionalized racial segregation as the paradigmatic historical framework for analyzing South Africa’s three centuries of settler colonialism and land dispossession. Drawing from this black radical critique, Chigumadzi rejects the liberal notion that apartheid’s end is the object of liberation struggle, and, instead asserts the centrality of the struggle for the return of indigenous lands.” Dr. Panashe Chigumadzi is an award-winning writer and Assistant Professor of African History at Brandeis University. Chigumadzi holds a doctorate from Harvard University’s Department of African and African American Studies, and a masters in African Literature from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.

Durham : Duke University Press, [2023]

London : Pluto Press, 2023.

Melbourne ; London : Scribe, 2020.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania : Temple University Press, 2024.

(Cell Press) In a study appearing April 30 in the journal Current Biology, scientists tell the story of three 16th century African slaves identified from a mass burial site in Mexico City. Using a combination of genetic, osteological, and isotope analyses, the scientists determined from where in Africa they were likely captured, the physical hardships they experienced as slaves, and what novel pathogens they may have carried with them across the Atlantic.

The play made me ask the terrifying question that every educator asks themselves at some point: Am I actually helping my students?

Dewey Library - HT1523.L285 2019

Hayden Library - BD241.F64713 2019

Hayden Library - PQ3897.C87 2016

Online Resource

Rotch Library - PQ3980.5.H47 2017

Hayden Library - GV1469.M85 2017

Hayden Library - BF575.P9 L54 2019

Online Resource

London ; New York : Routledge, 2003

Online Resource

Rotch Library - CB425.R337 2014

Rotch Library - HT361.K5673 2016

Rotch Library - PQ3980.5.H47 2017

The world’s first cruise ship, the Prinzessin Victoria Luise, opened for business—but mostly for pleasure—in 1901. The Hamburg-American line vessel contained only first-class cabins, each of which was “brilliantly lighted by electricity,” outfitted with electric bells,  steam-heated, and ventilated. At the time, these were luxury amenities even more impressive than the ship’s marine golf deck...

The post Cruising and Colonialism: Sailing the Caribbean in the Wake of the Spanish-American War appeared first on Behind The Scenes.

Title: Colonialism and the object [electronic resource] : empire, material culture, and the museum / edited by Tim Barringer and Tom Flynn.
Imprint: London New York : Routledge, 1998.
Shelfmark: Taylor & Francis ebooks
Subjects: Art, Primitive.
Art, Colonial.
Art, Colonial -- Foreign influences.
Colonies -- Relations -- Europe.
Europe -- Relations -- Colonies.
Art, Colonial. fast (OCoLC)fst00816140
Art, Colonial -- Foreign influences. fast (OCoLC)fst00816142
Art, Primitive. fast (OCoLC)fst00816768
Europe. fast (OCoLC)fst01245064

Rotch Library - NA2543.I47 N46 2019