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this was my second time at the Barnes... the first being this summer while the Nari Ward exhibition was up. i went for the opening reception/dance performance and it was wonderful. i have a bunch of photos i'll try to upload later (having tech issues rn). that experience was drastically different from our visit this past week; I didn't even go into the upper-level galleries when I came in the summer.
The NMAAHC was SUCH an incredible experience. I've never been in any institutional space and felt so full, so home, so real. I hope that we can bring some sort of architectural meta-narrative into our exhibit like that of the NMAAHC. I don't mean a progress-driven, linear story, but maybe a multi-layered, multi-temporal way of moving through the space, not just in our display of the pieces. I also had a conversation with Alliyah in ed class about incorporating some innovative lighting techniques in our exhibit... i want us to think deeply about orienting the audience... a self-reflexive confrontation? how can we do this? I wanna workshop ideas.
I think you all might enjoy--or @ least be intrigued by--this article in today's NYTimes Magazine, "The Anti-Helicopter Parent’s Plea: Let Kids Play!"--
www.nytimes.com/2016/10/23/magazine/the-anti-helicopter-parents-plea-let-kids-play.html It's about a Silicon Valley dad who "decided to test his theories about parenting by turning his yard into a playground where children can take physical risks without supervision. Not all of his neighbors were thrilled." (Kat, you'll be interested to see that the journalist writing the article evokes Lord of the Flies!)
A passage that really struck me in this book was on page 97, when Mairs states "Power and privilege dangerously insulate policy-makers from the real needs of their constituents". This quote caught my eye because I believe it is a huge problem in politics today, especially in the case of disability. Politics is currently ruled by old, rich, white men, who make decisions for the rest of the country based primarily off their own beliefs and experiences. While this isn't totally a bad thing (not trying to say all politicians are bad and pompous and terrible), it has been recognized that diversification and representation are extremely important in politics, as it allows more voices to be heard.
When I hear the word "intersectionality" my mind jumps to thinking about activism and identity construction. The intersectinos of my identity are expressions of my intimate self, my personhood that isnt allowed to be expressed to the larger commuities. It never feels like the right time, or one experience negates the other instead of them being a collage of Olivia. Specific experiences are chosen in the time of their convenience to be consumed. The lack of intersectional discourse speaks to our conditined impulses to make the people around us small for X reason. It is abouut coping. Id love for there to be a world where there can be intersections that not only exist, but are accepted, able to be named, and also have a respected difference of perspective.
I left class today a little spread all over the place. I feel like having the topic of intersectionality is important, but I feel as if the way we came into was a little forced. I struggled with our activity simply because Im stuggling to even appreciate the text itself. I was hoping for more discussion about the characters themselves, before getting into how they function as intersectional bodies, which is a radical and political platform. Anne mentioned a comment about the black artists being percieved as making a statement rather than just art. I feel like the statement in Parks' novel is important and is definitiely present. However, Im struggling because I don't feel like I'm concentrating on the work and reading it as is. I agree with Franny's post a lot.
hello friends,
our take on intersectionality was through the theme of a Hole. Our first passage was from Willa Mae (P.30-31):
i know this is late, i'm sorry! midnight tuesday isn't a great deadline for me because i go into rehearsal at 5 and get out (and start studying) at 11. anyway. here's what we talked about in class today.
***
"people will talk. let them talk. i can bear it. i am a beede... june flowers is a beede by marriage, not birth, so what june flowers can bear is another story." (roosevelt, page 51)
later (page 107), roosevelt expands on this, noting that
"there's lots of families i coulda been born into, families with more luck, or more money, but being a beede means being able to bear the unbearable, so i guess i would rather be a beede than be anybody else in all the world."
freshman year, i took a class called 'interdisciplines of gender and sexuality'. the topics ranged from performativity to labor to citizenship to disability to futurity... and one of these topics was intersectionality. in retrospect it makes sense because everything about the class felt very ~intro 100 level freshman-y~ but my main issue was the fact that we had a separate topic for intersectionality. of course everything about citizenship is tied to race and disability and futurity have roots in each other and and and
kimberle crenshaw coined the term intersectionality and has an esssay on 'demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex' where she details a Black feminist critique on feminist theory and antiracist politics. in one passage, she says,