V Memory and the Archive Past. Present. Future. TERRY BODDIE,PRISON INDUSTRIAL, 2018 October 17–19, 2019 2 V Memory and the Archive Past. Present. Future. Table of Contents Welcome ..............................................................................................................................................................................................................4 Schedule Grid / Thursday, October 17, 2019...........................................................................................................................................8 Schedule Grid / Friday, October 18, 2019.................................................................................................................................................9 Schedule Grid / Saturday, October 19, 2019.........................................................................................................................................10 Day at a glance / Thursday, October 17, 2019.....................................................................................................................................11 Day at a glance / Friday, October 18, 2019 ...........................................................................................................................................13 Day at a glance / Saturday, October 19, 2019......................................................................................................................................15 Schedule/Abstracts........................................................................................................................................................................................16 Biographies A–Z .............................................................................................................................................................................................58 Index...................................................................................................................................................................................................................91 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The organizers of this event would like to extend our very special thanks to the NYU; Office of the President, Global Inclusion, Diversity, and Strategic Innovation; Office of University Relations and Public Affairs/Brooklyn; Office of the Provost; Office of the Dean - Tisch School of the Arts; Department of Photography & Imaging; NYU Institute of African American Affairs & Center for Black Visual Culture; NYU Center for the Humanities; NYU Africa House; Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music; Interactive Telecommunications Program; Center for the Study of Africa and the African Diaspora at NYU; Harvard; Hutchins Center for African and African American Research; Bob Holmes; Columbia University Department African American African Diaspora Studies; and Studio Museum in Harlem. Additionally, we express much gratitude to the following people for their advice and assistance in making this program book and conference possible: Michael Anthony Bernard, Isolde Brielmaier, Mecca Brooks, Edgar Castillo, Sonia Louise Davis, Steven Fullwood, Michael Gillespie, Jhanele Tiffany Green, Dell M. Hamilton, Bob Holmes, Jessica Ingram, Niki Kekos, Patricia McKelvin, Kalia Brooks Nelson, Mary Notari, Jaïra Placide, Adam Ryder, Caleb Savage, Liz Terry, and Abby Wolf. Program design by Frances Pollitt Sarver, www.precisemodern.com. 3 WELCOME V Memory and the Archive Past. Present. Future. What is called the imagination (from image, magi, magic, magician, etc.) is a practical vector from the soul. It stores all data, and can be called on to solve all our “problems.” The imagination is the projection of ourselves past our sense of ourselves as “things.” Imagination (image) is all possibility, because from the image, the initial circumscribed energy, any use (idea) is possible. And so begins that image’s use in the world. Possibility is what moves us. —Amiri Baraka, “The Revolutionary Theatre”,Liberator, July 1965 We begin this welcome with the words of the profound poet- slavery and its aftermath remains a strategic element of activist, Amiri Baraka as we believe these words set the tone of this contemporary art’s transformative power. In this Afrofuturistic conference:imagination and possibility. Through a series of work, Boddie takes on the history of the transatlantic slave trade conversations over the past few years we have explored the and the persistence of the prison industrial complex, riffing on the meaning of a portrait and by doing so reimagined how portraits eighteenth century graphics of the British abolitionist icon, the have been conceived and received. We are delighted to welcome monotony of prison time, and the minimalism of the twentieth you to Black Portraiture[s] V: Memory and the Archive, Past/ century Universal Product Code, or barcode, commonly used to Present/Future, the fifth iteration of a longstanding intellectual represent data in a visually readable form for optical scanners. partnership between New York University, Harvard University, Layering metaphors and meaning, technology and tragedy, Cornell University, scholars, artists, writers, colleagues, students Boddie’s cleverly placed prison door lock disrupts the collaged and friends. This 400th anniversary year, marking the first images of “big data,” illustrating how artistic images might encode documented landing of enslaved Africans on North American memory, violence and futurity. Boddie’sPrison Industrial gives us shores, gives us cause for reflection and poses a fount of open reason to examine how technology and innovation are reshaping ended, yet demanding questions, scholarly and otherwise: how do the very nature of archives and the kind of research that scholars, we begin to commemorate such a fraught anniversary? How has artists and activists might glean from them to change the world in the archival record documented this centuries long journey? What which we and our children live – to design better schools, provide are the visual, textual, aural, oral and performance-based sources more equitable housing, ensure safer neighborhoods, score yet that recall the past yet feed the vibrant moment in which we live unheard melodies, beautify our parks, choreograph different and thrive? How can our labor and creativity as artists, scholars, movements for our bodies, trace our genealogical lineage, provide students and change agents dismantle the yoke of structural clean drinking water, reverse unjust prison sentences, write more racism that was ushered in with the transatlantic slave trade and poetry, create new models for theater and performance, inspire the historic Jamestown, Virginia landing? These questions, visual artists and public historians? These questions suggest that bounded in history and the present, call for a brighter, more just there is still much work to be done and offer a framework for how and equitable future. we might embark upon projects of transformation and renewal inspired by this notable anniversary. Let us take a moment to consider the work of art by Terry Boddie on our homepage and the cover of our program.Prison Industrial Black Portraiture[s] V: Memory and the Archive: Past/Present/Fu‐ encapsulates an artistic practice that Cheryl Finley describes as ture takes place at New York University with 50 concurrent panel mnemonic aesthetics and illustrates how the visual archive of discussions and interventions over three days, from October 17th 4 TERRY BODDIE, PRISON INDUSTRIAL, 2018 through October 19th, 2019. We also take this opportunity to Space and Identity); power and social change (Creating States of celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Institute of African African Being: Independence, Agency, Criticality – A Creating Interference American Affairs at New York University, noting the founding Project CIP); archival integrity (Subject to Scrutiny: Female directors, Dr. Roscoe C. Brown (1969-1977), Earl S. Davis. MSW Subjectivities, Blackness and Visual Archives); art and literature (1979-1994), Dr. Manthia Diawara (1994-2018), and current (Call and Response: Artist-Writers on the Archive); sonic director Dr. Deborah Willis (2018-), and the now legendary imaginaries (The Sonic 15th Century to Today: Music and conferences, programs and publications that IAAA has produced, Influences), and student panels. including Brownstone, the journalRevue Noire, the international conferenceYari Yari! Black Women Writers and the Future in 1997, The theme of this interdisciplinary conference expands the notion of Black Genius: African-American Solutions to African-American the portraiture and addresses the black body in photography, print, Problems and many more. video, film and exhibition spaces. The practice of black visual studies entails the critical evaluation of images in multiple realms of culture Anniversaries are always cause for reflection. But not necessarily and we hope that the exchanges over the next three days will celebration, or even commemoration. To remember an anniversary enhance our understanding of personal memory and public archives. notes its place in the historical record, but it also provides We dedicate this conference to the memory of noted curator Okwui opportunities for comparing the past to the present, to ask, how far Enwezor (1963-2019) and Deb’s sister Yvonne Willis Brooks (1946- have we come, or put another way, how did we arrive here, and 2019). Both dedicated their lives to arts and education. where are we going? What