"Imaging Slavery: Imagining Freedom? Artistry, Agency and Alchemy in African Atlantic Art Histories"

This talk will examine the provocative, challenging and powerful ways in which African American and African diasporic artists more generally have engaged with the difficult legacies of slavery, colonialism and empire in their diverse sculpture, painting, photography, graffiti, quilts, mixed-media installations, murals, and digital and performance art produced over a fifty year period between 1960-2010. Drawing on archival research as well as interviews with major yet significantly under-researched, if not almost entirely neglected, artists, a key concern of this talk will be to address their self-reflexive engagement with a politicized aesthetic and an aestheticized politics across their experimental oeuvre as they cut to the heart not only of imaging slavery but imagining freedom. This talk is part of the GLC Brown Bag Lunch Series. Bring your lunch and we’ll provide the drinks & dessert.