My first museum curatorial project took place at Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive as part of The Artist's Eye exhibition. The Artist's Eye included curatorial projects by artists Tammy Rae Carland, David Huffman and John Zurier with works selected from BAMPFA's vast permanent collection, as well as two new works for the exhibition––my first video, Solidarity Redux: Black Lives Matter and Aspects of the Artist’s Dilemma.
My curatorial offering commemorates the 50th anniversary of Betye Saar's iconic "The Liberation of Aunt Jemima" with a selection of works by a multigenerational group of Black women artists: Betye Saar, Mildred Howard, Erica Deeman, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Carrie Mae Weems, Mary Lovelace O'Neal, Sadie Barnette, and Adrian Piper. My curation also embraces curatorial activism and institutional critique by bringing attention to the dearth of works by Black women artists in BAMPFA's permanent collection, and calls for greater representation of Black women across all aspects of BAMPFA's leadership, programming and administration. I also call for a commitment by BAMPFA to do the transformational work necessary to create a culture where Black women's (and all people's) creative and intellectual work can thrive.
In Solidarity Redux: Black Lives Matter (2022), my first work in video, I read aloud the racial justice solidarity statements released by museums across the country in the wake of worldwide Black Lives Matter protests after the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others in the summer of 2020. In activating these statements through speech, I’m drawing parallels with the action required by stated promises that may or may not have been delivered, with statements from institutions with “much work still to be done”, contrasted with statements by institutions whose mission is to support Black communities and Black artists.
Aspects of the Artist’s Dilemma (2022), another new work created for the exhibition, takes its inspiration from Aspects of the Liberal Dilemma (1978) by Adrian Piper. The work is created from enlarged pages of my journal where I reflect on the issues that I encountered while working on The Artist’s Eye exhibition. Aspects of the Artist's Dilemma begins with the quote by Angela Davis “You have to act as if it were possible to change the world, and you have to do it all of the time.” Through this work, I urge museums (BAMPFA included) to contend with the legacies of exclusion and structural racism that exists within and throughout their institutions and to enact a process of change that will facilitate a sense of belonging and agency, not only for Black women, but for all people.