The practicum was fruitful in many ways, one of which was meeting so many cool and smart people in the museum world and expanding my circle of creative folks worldwide. Another awesome personal outcome of the practicum and the community I found there were the opportunities it created for me to talk about my ideas about the intersection of other art forms and poetry…Big Thanks to Erica Harper for asking me to be on the Phillips Collection panel for Teaching with Jacob Lawrence: The American Struggle Then and Now

Another opportunity that was so meaningful to me was when Ilk Yaska invited me to write a reflection for Studio Museum in Harlem’s Museum and Systems symposium. It is hard to describe my respect and reverence for the Studio Museum. I know the idea of the museum itself comes with its flaws, including the Studio, yet I love the work the Museum has been doing and its efforts to define an “us”, “our”, & “we”

Needless to say, it was an honor to write this reflection, and I hope to get more opportunities like this. The version that is on the website is a bit different from the one I turned in, so if you want to read that one hit me up, I will send it to you, but go here if you want to read the version they published.
One correction I noticed is that they misprinted my equation for Wellness  represented it should read:

Not Wellness = Care + Time

Anyway,  enough running my mouth,  here is the link to my recap /reflection….click here

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This episode features  Drs. Bettina Judd and Amber Johnson are both poet-scholars who are using poetry and poetic lens to engage their work in Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies and  Social Justice respectively.

You should really check out this episode of the podcast and their back catalog which often features poetry.

I have known Dr. Judd for quite some time and have always appreciated the rigor she brings to her poetry. As many of us poets attempt to do, she brings together an interdisciplinary mix of influences to her poetries and other writing.

Judd’s book patient (which you should go get), included some poems which joined in the chorus of Black (and other) women poets to creatively engage the history of  Saartje  Bartman.  I think I first became aware of  Bartman’s story through Dr. Elizabeth Alexander’s book , The Venus Hottentot. Since then many Black writers have added their voices Some of the writers and artists have added their voices to mentioning or telling  Bartman’s story in their creative works, Wikipedia has a list here that I think is a primer, but it missed both the poetry books of Dr. Bettina Judd (patient)  and poet-educator Dominque Christina (Anarcha Speaks). Both of these books give voice to the history of medical experimentation that Black women have endured in the name of advancing “Western medicine.”

I know that Wikipedia is not meant to be comprehensive by any stretch of the imagination, but I  expect more of Harvard, the Hutchins Center, and of the Resilient Sisterhood Project.

The Hutchins Center recently mounted an exhibition, Call and Response: A Narrative of Reverence to Our Foremothers in Gynecology. It is an amazing selection of artists, curator Dell M. Hamilton, places in conversation with paying homage to the “foremothers” of gynecology.

I was excited to see an exhibition guide that has images of the works, curatorial statements, and artist bios. Also included is a list of further reading on both the static website and the pdf exhibition guide.

While perusing the further reading, I was surprised to not see any of the Black women poets and playwrights on the website or the exhibition guide. What was even more curious was none of the creative works by Black women (Elizabeth Alexander, Suzan-Lori Parks, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Lydia R. Diamond, Jamila Woods, Zodwa Nyoni, Tessa McWatt, Meghan Swaby, Bettina Judd, Dominique Christina…i am sure there are others) were included, yet a very recently published book (SAY ANARCHA by J.C. Hallman) by a white male author was later added to the list

I must admit I am quite surprised and disappointed that the works of these Black women were not added to the list of resources, Alexander and Parks in particular, because I speculate that the acclaim and reach of their works ( and many others prior to 2002) added to the discussion that moved the French National Museum of Natural History to return her remains to Bartman’s home in South Africa.

This to me speaks to the lack of value placed on the poetics (and other production) of Black women, even when telling the stories of Black women. While I understand that Hallman’s SAY ANARCHA is “staggeringly researched”, I can say no less of not just the scholarship and rigor of the work of the Black women who have engaged with Bartman and others, but also of their lived experiences which surely render them as experts to be included a “further reading” and to broaden the discussion and scope of the exhibition.
What is further confounding is the exhibition that was co-sponsored by an organization called the Resilient Sisterhood Project would not privilege the work of Black women creative writers. **** Hallman does make one small reference Judd’s patient, the online archive of the book

We have to do better. Black women poet-scholars are continuing the long tradition of producing work that merges their creative and critical expertise, and we are better for it, but we should be taking every opportunity we have to put their voices in our conversations, especially when the conversation intersects with both their expertise and their lived experiences.

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I am 3 weeks into The Studio Museum in Harlem’s Museum Education Practicum and I am having a ball. There are so many smart and accomplished people in this class, I am really happy to be a part of it and I hope that it spawns some opportunity for collaboration and future projects together.

Because of a project that I am currently working on, I started thinking about the people who are not in this class and who might benefit from hearing about what we are doing. So I decided to try to do some brain dumps or some kind of summary after my class.

Today the readings were all about the term “post-black.” I think it is almost impossible to talk about The Studio and not at least mention this term. The Week #3 readings were very interesting, they were the following:
1. “Is there a ‘post-black’ art?” by Cathy Byrd
2. Introduction to Freestyle by Thelma Golden
3. “The Multiplicity of Multiplicities–Post-Black Art and its Intricacies” by Nana Adusei-Poku

I remember when i first heard this term amongst my poet and writing comrades we were like, “WTF is a post-black.” My first inclination is that is was another way to call Black artists the N-word and if not it would be used that way. The other thing that happened too is that i feel like there was a lot of backlash at the suggestion of a period “after” black. One of my mentors turn the whole discussion on its head and said, “Nah, the real discussion we should be having is is “post-whiteness.” After our last 4 years it is clear that we as a country and a world need to think about the reality that the construct of whiteness has wrought an continues to impact in our world and what kind of world is possible “post-whiteness.”

Some the important topics that came up in the small groups I was in were:

1. Commodification: All art is commodified, that is why they call it the “art market.” That said we discussed because Black artists represent such a segment of said market, establishing a term like “post-black” that could be (or be used as) a package marketing term to tell the “art market” that this artwork will not make you feel guilty, you can view without having to think about that old, pesky Race, or Racism, or Blackness.
2. Tensions: To be Black and creating is filled with tensions because black life at large is filled with tensions. Even Black artists that art not creating expressed “Black” work feel the pressure of being who they are in the world.
3. Process (& Material): In our discussions about the artists in the videos we were asked to watch (Senga Nengudi, Jack Whitten, and Kevin Beasley), it was so instructive to see the artists talk about a piece of work and walk us through its creation and the ideas and craft that go into the work.
4. Our instructor also asked us to consider the term post-black and more specifically how the term made us feel and how we thought the term functions/(ed).

There was much more but I think this captures the main elements….

Stay Tuned. I will fill you in on #1 & #2 later. See you next time…

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