Art, Space, Race Symposium 2013

Permanent URI for this collection

https://hdl.handle.net/1805/31384

Art, Race, Space is a collaborative research project that takes as its starting point E Pluribus Unum, a public art installation proposed for the Indianapolis Culture Trail by renowned artist Fred Wilson that was cancelled in 2011 due to controversy surrounding Wilson’s appropriation of a freed slave figure from the Soldiers and Sailors Monument. Art, Race, Space” goes beyond examining the visual legacies of racial bondage to explore how the public responses to sculptures, memorials, and archaeology reveal our society’s fault lines of race and inequality. Building on the ideas about race, class, visual culture, and democratic debate that emerge from the Indianapolis project, the faculty have designed a multifaceted program to advance scholarship and promote civic dialogue about these significant issues. The faculty members organized an interdisciplinary symposium in January, 2013. Supported by an IAHI grant, the symposium explored the complicated relationships between art, race, and civic space with presentations by Wilson, community representatives who supported and opposed the sculpture, and scholars from a variety of disciplines who examined historical and cultural contexts of the controversy that had revealed Indianapolis’ longstanding racial and class tensions. The dialogue was expanded with the presentation of historical and contemporary examples from other parts of the United States.


Symposium program sheet

Sessions

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    Activism and Preservation: Fred Wilson’s E Pluribus Unum
    (Indiana University, 2013-01-25) Cooks, Bridget
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    Public Art, Public Response
    (Indiana University, 2013-01-25) Doss, Erika
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    Welcome and Introductory Remarks
    (Indiana University, 2013-01-25) Blomquist, William; Labode, Modupe; Wilson, Fred
    William Blomquist, “Welcome.” Modupe Labode, “Introductory remarks.” Fred Wilson, “Inspiration: Musings on what Monuments Memorials, and Public Art Inspire Me”
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    Communities in Conflict: Memorializing Martin Luther King, Jr.
    (Indiana University, 2013-01-25) Ater, Renée
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    Moderated Discussion
    (Indiana University, 2013-01-25) Duke, Linda; Taylor Ross, Mindy; Wilson, Fred; Doss, Erika; Cooks, Bridget; Upton, Dell; Ater, Renée; Pierce, Richard; Mullins, Paul R.
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    Contexts of Time and Space
    (Indiana University, 2013-01-25) Kyrder-Reid, Elizabeth; Pierce, Richard; Mullins, Paul R.; Upton, Dell
    Panel including: Elizabeth Kryder-Reid, Introduction. Richard Pierce, “We’ve Been Trying To Tell You: African-American Protest in Indianapolis.” Paul Mullins “Racializing the City: An Archaeology of Urban Renewal and Black Indianapolis.” Dell Upton, “Dual Heritages: The New Face of White Supremacy in the Old South.”
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    Public Conversation and Closing Remarks
    (Indiana University, 2013-01-25) White, Carol; Labode, Modupe
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    "Just the Facts: Context, Section, and Outreach" and "Community Viewpoints"
    (Indiana University, 2013-01-25) Taylor Ross, Mindy; Brown, Amos
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    Art, Race, Space Symposium [Program]
    (Indiana University, 2013-01-25) Museum Studies Program
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    Art, Race, Space
    (Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, 2013-04-05) Kryder-Reid, Elizabeth; Labode, Modupe; Holzman, Laura M.; Mullins, Paul R.
    Art, Race, Space is a collaborative research project that takes as its starting point E Pluribus Unum, a public art installation proposed for the Indianapolis Culture Trail by renowned artist Fred Wilson that was cancelled in 2011 due to controversy surrounding Wilson’s appropriation of a freed slave figure from the Soldiers and Sailors Monument. Art, Race, Space” goes beyond examining the visual legacies of racial bondage to explore how the public responses to sculptures, memorials, and archaeology reveal our society’s faultlines of race and inequality. Building on the ideas about race, class, visual culture, and democratic debate that emerge from the Indianapolis project, the faculty have designed a multifaceted program to advance scholarship and promote civic dialogue about these significant issues. The faculty members organized an interdisciplinary symposium in January, 2013. Supported by an IAHI grant, the symposium explored the complicated relationships between art, race, and civic space with presentations by Wilson, community representatives who supported and opposed the sculpture, and scholars from a variety of disciplines who examined historical and cultural contexts of the controversy that had revealed Indianapolis’ longstanding racial and class tensions. The dialogue was expanded with the presentation of historical and contemporary examples from other parts of the United States. In order to encourage public dialogue, the symposium provided opportunities for audience members and presenters to engage in conversations, and it deployed social media (Twitter and Facebook) to encourage broader participation. The project's goal is to further scholarship and encourage public conversation on race and materiality. To this end the faculty have created a website, a Facebook page, Twitter account, and are working on an open-access curriculum to support dialogue in schools and informal learning settings about the complex issues of art, race, and representation. The faculty are also collaborating on academic publications, including selected proceedings and an article on the symposium's "hybrid discourse" that combined university and community resources, expertise, and communication practices and brought together diverse voices in constructive conversation about the challenging issues surrounding E Pluribus Unum.