MARCH 3rd - 30th
After Archives
Alex Callender • Sarah Stefana Smith • Wendel White
What happened between or out of or in the holes of the story is the real story…
-Lauren Russell, Descent
-Lauren Russell, Descent
Traditional archives – documents, images, objects – are commonly understood as physical sites in which historical knowledge and memory are collected, organized, and preserved. Archives convey a certain air of authority, of neutrality, of completeness: of the record as somehow transparent, given, fixed. Yet bound up in issues of power and posterity, archives embody the ongoing entanglement of social and historical relations: What is collected, cherished, sought after, ignored? Who and what is made present, salient; what slips between the cracks, into the silences? And how do these choices shape future conditions for navigating the past?
After Archives brings together the work of three artists -- Alex Callender, Sarah Stefana Smith, and Wendel White -- who engage archival practices, content, and forms to examine, unearth, interrogate, and reimagine aspects of African American history and experience. In Manifest, Wendel White finds and photographs, in detail simultaneously intimate and monumental, embodied traces of America’s interwoven histories of slavery, abolitionism, segregation, and civil rights in archives across the nation: a lock of Frederick Douglass’s hair; a hand-drawn map of Eatonville, Florida, one of the oldest Black-incorporated municipalities in the United States. Working with New England archival collections (including the W.E.B. Du Bois papers at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst), Callender explores historic land and housing policies that continue to impact communities of color. And, through permeable sculpture and installation made from “threshold” materials, Smith gives form to the interplay of absence and presence in historical records, finding and making space for untold stories, for affect and emotion. Each artist charts a course “between or out of or in the holes” of the archive, navigating the ways in which space, bodies, material traces, and forms of (un)freedom intersect.
After Archives is curated by Amy Halliday
After Archives brings together the work of three artists -- Alex Callender, Sarah Stefana Smith, and Wendel White -- who engage archival practices, content, and forms to examine, unearth, interrogate, and reimagine aspects of African American history and experience. In Manifest, Wendel White finds and photographs, in detail simultaneously intimate and monumental, embodied traces of America’s interwoven histories of slavery, abolitionism, segregation, and civil rights in archives across the nation: a lock of Frederick Douglass’s hair; a hand-drawn map of Eatonville, Florida, one of the oldest Black-incorporated municipalities in the United States. Working with New England archival collections (including the W.E.B. Du Bois papers at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst), Callender explores historic land and housing policies that continue to impact communities of color. And, through permeable sculpture and installation made from “threshold” materials, Smith gives form to the interplay of absence and presence in historical records, finding and making space for untold stories, for affect and emotion. Each artist charts a course “between or out of or in the holes” of the archive, navigating the ways in which space, bodies, material traces, and forms of (un)freedom intersect.
After Archives is curated by Amy Halliday
IN CONVERSATION:
ALEX CALLENDER and SARAH STEFANA SMITH, with JENNIFER DECLUE
March 23, 4:30-5:30pm in the A.P.E. Gallery
Join artists Alex Callender and Sarah Stefana Smith as they talk about their shared inquiry - and individual artistic practices - in(to) archives and absences, historical records and contemporary resonances, in conversation with queer studies and black feminism scholar Jennifer DeClue. A small, informal convening that speaks to the importance of building communities of practice and place, the talk will unfold within the setting of the exhibition 'After Archives', which brings Smith and Callender's work into dialogue for the first time.
Seats will be limited to 30 people on a first-come basis; the gallery will be open following the event until 6pm. FREE
Seats will be limited to 30 people on a first-come basis; the gallery will be open following the event until 6pm. FREE
MAKING HISTORY MANIFEST: Photography in the Archives
• an online presentation with Wendel White; March 12, 3pm •
Q&A led by Clark University Associate Professor of History, Ousmane Power-Greene
Throughout his career, photographer and scholar Wendel White has sought to “excavate Black history through material culture” by exploring the history and lived experience of African American communities through objects, images, and documents found in archives and historical collections.
White is currently one of three artists featured in A.P.E.'s current exhibition, After Archives, curated by Amy Halliday. In this presentation hosted by Historic Northampton, White will discuss the role of archives and museum collections in his own work (and particularly in the ongoing project, Manifest), his interest in examining the impulses and motivations to preserve history and record memory, and his belief that remnants of material culture are imbued with the power to help challenge our preconceived ideas. Clark University Associate Professor of History, Ousmane Power-Greene, will respond to Wendel White's presentation, and lead a brief Q&A.
“The ability of objects to transcend lives, centuries, and millennia suggests a remarkable mechanism for folding time, bringing the past and the present into a shared space that is uniquely suited to artistic exploration. These artifacts are the forensic evidence of Black life and events in the United States.”
Co-sponsored by the David Ruggles Center and A.P.E. Gallery
Register for the Zoom link HERE
Sliding scale admission: $5-25.
Students: free of charge.
White is currently one of three artists featured in A.P.E.'s current exhibition, After Archives, curated by Amy Halliday. In this presentation hosted by Historic Northampton, White will discuss the role of archives and museum collections in his own work (and particularly in the ongoing project, Manifest), his interest in examining the impulses and motivations to preserve history and record memory, and his belief that remnants of material culture are imbued with the power to help challenge our preconceived ideas. Clark University Associate Professor of History, Ousmane Power-Greene, will respond to Wendel White's presentation, and lead a brief Q&A.
“The ability of objects to transcend lives, centuries, and millennia suggests a remarkable mechanism for folding time, bringing the past and the present into a shared space that is uniquely suited to artistic exploration. These artifacts are the forensic evidence of Black life and events in the United States.”
Co-sponsored by the David Ruggles Center and A.P.E. Gallery
Register for the Zoom link HERE
Sliding scale admission: $5-25.
Students: free of charge.