Description:

Speakers:

Kemi Adeyemi | Theaster Gates | Tempestt Hazel | Maséqua Myers 

Moderated by Melanie Chambliss (Columbia College Chicago)

Please join the Northwestern University Black Arts Consortium for a symposium on “Black Arts Chicago: The Forgotten Story.” This is the first event in Northwestern’s yearlong Sawyer Seminar: “The Black Arts Archive: The Challenge of Translation.” The fall symposium will engage the rich archive of Black arts in Chicago to explore the deep histories, social and political artistic movements, and players in the city’s tradition of Black arts from the nineteenth century to the present. 

Supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Northwestern's 2020-2021 Sawyer Seminar will include a series of symposiums, graduate courses, and a summer institute focusing on various archives of Black arts across the African Diaspora. The project emphasizes three regions: Chicago, the Caribbean (Bahamas, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and Haiti), and South Africa. With the goal of generating a sustained conversation over the course of the year, “The Black Arts Archive: The Challenge of Translation" Sawyer Seminar will feature a series of visiting artists and scholars from the three regions who will engage the theme of translation and the archive.