Though this year’s festival may be over, there are still those who have its works and impacts on their minds. Our Thinkers in Residence each went out during the festival days and engaged with the artists, the works, the public, and the street. They had their own reactions and interpretations of what they saw and experienced. As we look forward to 2017, let us take the time to look back on what these Thinkers thought and read their perspectives on this year’s festival.
Thinker in Residence: Corey Dzenko
Bio:
Corey Dzenko is currently an Assistant Professor of Art History at Monmouth University in New Jersey. Her research interests include: contemporary art history and theory; histories and theories of photography and expanded/new media; art as an agent of social change; and ideologies of identity. She earned her Ph.D. in Art History from the University of New Mexico and was a Visiting Fellow at the University of Nottingham. Dzenko presents her work in various national and international conferences and has publications included in Men and Masculinities, Afterimage: The Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Criticism, and the anthology Gravity in Art.
“Questions of RACE in 2016: Looking for Answers in Art in Odd Places”
Corey Dzenko, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Art History, Monmouth University
AiOP 2016: RACE, Thinker-in-Residence
[who] Each and every one of us contributes to [what] the construction of RACE. [how] We construct [when] during the small moments of our daily lives as well as larger special events, including the recent Art and Odd Places (AiOP) festival. [who] Historian Barbara Jeanne Fields defines [what] RACE as a descriptive vocabulary, an ideology, or an “interpretation in thought of the social relations through which they constantly create and re-create their collective being” (110). [who] They/we all [how] participate in maintaining or contesting current configurations of RACE through our various activities that include, but are not limited to, using language, making art, interacting with and educating our students/ourselves/each other, developing policy, and understanding history.
[when] During AiOP 2016: RACE, [who] over thirty artists [how] offered their curated projects to the viewing—and sometimes unknowing—public [where] along NYC’s 14th Street. [when] During the duration of my visit [who] I [how] witnessed and partook in numerous conversations spurred on by the artworks on display. I spoke with people I have known for years but might not see very often. I spoke with people I had never met before. I saw [who] other people who happened to be [where] on 14th Street [how] both join in and attempt to avoid the discussions that festival participants ventured to start. Broadly speaking, the decision to avoid engaging with [what] RACE is just as consequential toward ideologically created realities; [how] doing so maintains the status quo and leaves the quest for equality as someone else’s battle.
[who] Fields reminds us that stakeholders [how] develop ideologies [when] at particular historical moments. Thus, [who] they/we [how] adjust ideologies to meet the “needs” of an era. The projects in AiOP 2016: RACE that explicitly engaged with [what] racialization [how] all sought to reconfigure today’s ideologies of race toward greater equality in a variety of ways. For instance, [where] from AiOP’s Speaker’s Corner [who] the Angry Lady [how] yelled, “Wake up, white people!” [who] Tasha Dougé [how] bore the weight our nation’s racial inequality on her shoulders; she recited her updated Pledge of Allegiance while her U.S. flag—made from black, brown, and gray hair extensions with cotton stars—draped over her. [who] Walis Johnson, Murray Cox, and Aimee Vonbokel [how] used their mobile display to consider NYC’s historical 1938 Red Line Map vis-à-vis gentrification today.
Although [what] specific formations of RACE have changed, RACE as an ideological mechanism that benefits the powerful [how] remains. Such maintenance warrants mentioning something that [who] I heard repeatedly [when] during AiOP. [how] The day’s honest and, at times, raw conversations often ended with the questions of what to do next. How do [who] we [how] make lasting change? There’s no one answer to this question. [who] We all [how] participate in maintaining or contesting [what] RACE. AiOP 2016: RACE [how] took RACE and the possibility of greater equality to [where] 14th Street [when] over the course of a long weekend. [who] We [how] can continue to take it further.
Works cited:
Barbara Jeanne Fields, “Slavery, Race and Ideology in the United States of America,” New Left Review 1, No. 181 (1990): 95-118.
