Morgue Anne on stage. Daniel Chang Photography; Courtesy of Morgue Anne
Collage of images of (from top left, clockwise: Maile Arvin, The British Museum, Eve Tuck, Patricia Hill Collins, Okwui Enwezor, Tate Modern Museum, and Angie Morrill
(2019) An excerpt from Expanding Enlightenment-Era Value Systems in Western Museums with Indigenous Decolonial Feminisms and Afrocentric Epistemologies (A Critical Ethics Review), Nicole Bearden
In January 2019, I undertook a research project in London, inspired by curator and art historian Okwui Enwezor’s (1963-2019) 2003 essay “The Postcolonial Constellation: Contemporary Art In a State of Permanent Transition”. In this essay, Enwezor discusses the opening of the Tate Modern in London in 2000, and states that "...globalization and cultural assimilation are operative in the art world…”.
Though Enwezor dealt directly with art and the Tate Modern in his essay, my research encompasses the British Museum for its influence as a lauded historical institution which displays art, natural, and cultural objects, and its problematic history in cultural display. My research consisted of examining the current presentations of non-Western art and cultural objects in the Tate Modern and British Museum in an attempt to understand what colonial roots are still visible and operative in these influential museums nearly twenty years after Enwezor’s essay was written.
The goal of this piece is to look to epistemologies and philosophies such as Afrocentric and Indigenous Feminisms in order to build a frame of possibility for more decolonized (which may lead to what I believe are more ethical) methods of display within art and encyclopedic museum institutions.
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(2017) Creative Prompts I wrote for students to create games for SIGNIFICANT PLAY: EXPLORING THE POSSIBILITIES OF HUMAN CONNECTION AND GAMEPLAY:
A series of prompts for creating games for an upcoming exhibition, where games will be available to play for the general public.
The following prompts are meant to be guidelines only, which means that you do not have to adopt the specific narrative, but may design a game that alludes to the feeling(s) the prompt evokes.
This project is first and foremost about the ways that humans connect to one another using technology, specifically games, and how games can encourage and sustain that connection, how they convey emotion, how we can use them for purposes other than entertainment, and to strain the limits of the medium.
Prompt 1:
You have been drafted into a top secret, non-governmental, global protection agency. This organization will take care of every material need you may have during the course of your time with them, and upon completion of your mission--which is somehow necessary to the survival of humankind--you will receive $1 billion dollars.
The caveat: You must leave in two hours. You may not tell anyone. You may not contact your loved ones while you are away. They will not be told anything about your absence, and you will be gone for 15 years. How do you, without betraying your mission, quickly communicate a sense of well-being, comfort, and love to those you leave behind?
Prompt 2:
You suddenly gain the ability to communicate with other species (animals, plants, mitochondria). How do you use your gifts? How do you navigate human society equipped with your new knowledge? How does this change the ways in which you move through the world?
Prompt 3:
Your best friend has been becoming more and more distant. You used to talk every day, see one another at least once a week, but now you haven’t hung out in months. The last time you spoke was three weeks ago, and the call lasted less than five minutes. They are never online anymore, and haven’t been showing up for class. This all began about three months after they began dating someone new. Are they okay? Are you growing apart? Is it something more serious? What do you do?
Prompt 4:
You leave your house for work (or class) like always. On the walk there, you catch snippets of conversation spoken in a foreign language, one you have never heard before. When you arrive, everyone you know is also speaking in this language. You no longer understand anything anyone is saying to you, when you look around, suddenly the street signs are made up of symbols you have never seen, your phone is filled with the same symbols. You think you might be crazy, but otherwise the world seems the same as before. What may have happened? How might you find out? What do you do to keep yourself safe?
