Race Stories: Essays on the Power of Images

Vision & Justice: How We Teach the Truth

Dear Friends,

What a time in life! Phew. Wow. This week has brought with it a pause between events and a chance for slow reflection on the joy, celebration, and community that has overflowed while out on the road, speaking about my latest book, The Unseen Truth, and also Race Stories: Essays on the Power of Images.

I’ve been watching recovery efforts after another monumental storm, following the election discourse, and readying myself to vote. For me, it’s a reminder to look to the tenacity of our vision, and to those who are daring to dream that more is possible.

If you are reading this, I know you’re going to the polls in November or are voting early. To check your registration, visit Vote.org!

And now for a little inspiration and reflections from the road:

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Democracy, Race, and the Power of Images

sarahelizabethlewis1

A post shared by @sarahelizabethlewis1

This week brought me back to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) where I held a curatorial position from 2004-07.

I was honored to co-organize with Roxana Marcoci a Forum on Contemporary Photography at MoMA to launch the first publication from the The Vision and Justice Book Series, complete with presentations by Dawoud Bey, Vinson Cunningham, Aruna D’Souza, Ava DuVernay, Awol Erizku, Marvin Heiferman, Sherrilyn Ifill, Siddhartha Mitter, Leigh Raiford, RaMell Ross, Deborah Willis, and I.

Each of us focused on the following question: What is the role of art and culture for justice in American democracy?

This question has been central for Vision & Justice, and the launch of our new book series expands this pursuit. During the Forum we celebrated the soon to be released publication, Race Stories: Essays on the Power of Images, along with Maurice Berger’s life and invaluable contributions to this conversation. Marvin Heiferman’s presentation about his husband brought many to tears.

The recording is now available, if you’d like to revisit the program or couldn’t join us in person. Thanks to so many: my co-editors, Leigh Raiford and Deborah Willis, the Advisory Board, Aperture, and for this first book, The New York Times. Thank you, especially, to Roxana, Caitlin Ryan, and the whole team at MoMA!

Race Stories is out next month!

Indigenous Life, Burial Grounds, and Carlisle, Pennsylvania

In the days before the release of The Unseen Truth, I traveled to Dickinson College to present the Jane L. and Robert H. Weiner Lecture in the Arts.

The campus, located in Carlisle, PA, is not far from the site of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, where many young Native Americans in the late nineteenth century were brought by the U.S. government to be educated, to learn vocations, but primarily to “assimilate.” I’ve been researching this history for my next book. Now, giving the talk, I found myself at the heart of the repository about the school, its students and legacy.

Recent work has begun to make this history visible. Please see this interview with Brenda Child for TIME from a few years ago, following the release of a report on federal Indigenous boarding schools, and more on a years long excavation project at the former school by the U.S. Office of Army Cemeteries, which led to the recovery of the remains of nine Native American children earlier this month.

I’m grateful to Ren Wei and the school for the invitation, and to have had the opportunity to speak with their students about how art and culture shape the ways in which we see each other within a representational democracy.

The Work of Dance and the History of Racial Justice: Southland

James Dean attending a dance class by Katherine Dunham. New York City. USA. 1955. © Dennis Stock | Magnum Photos

This semester, I’m co-teaching a course entitled Art of the Black World with Professor Suzanne Preston Blier. During a recent class discussion, the conversation wove its way to the dancer and choreographer Katherine Dunham and her ballet, Southland. We had assigned a text about this extraordinary production. Through the ballet, Dunham told the story of a Black man and the act of racial terror: lynching, writing in the program notes: "This is the story of no actual lynching in the Southern states of America, and still it is the story of every one of them." (Library of Congress).

Here is an article from Forbes that focuses on Southland, its impact on her career, as well as Dunham’s lasting influence on dance in the United States.

And yes, that is James Dean in one of Dunham’s dance classes above!

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Thank you for reading.

Warmly,

Sarah