evidence, artifacts & heirlooms: Thoughts on Memorials

This course explores the ways in which objects and material culture embody personal narrative. Moving back and forth from ephemeral traces of events and experiences to the culturally invested luxury goods that create legacy to the objects that facilitate daily life, this class will use, as its primary references, examples that draw from queer and African American cultures to underscore the potential of objects to tell the stories that not only reflect majority traditions and experiences but those of the disenfranchised, the details of whose lives are often obscured. In addition to readings that will provide background for class discussion, student will be asked to play the roles of detectives, archeologists, and curators at various sites around New York City. Each student will also be asked to create an annotated material record that reveals the public and private lives of one individual. That record may consist of texts, objects or any variety of media chosen or designed by the student. This blogs serves as an archive for the work done in the context of this course and related materials that become relevant to this exploration.

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Thoughts on Memorials

I was thinking about how memorials are often physical representations of events or experiences. But are the best memorials even coming close to expressing what they stand for? Or are viewers simply applying their own thoughts and emotions to the monument.

While there are many examples, the Irish Hunger memorial came to mind. We're in a time now when we can still feel bad for the people that suffered during that time. And even trace our relation to them in some cases. However, a grassy field with stones naming the Irish counties can never compare to starving to death, or fearing that you will be unable to feed your family, or seeing people starving around you. Yet people still visit this memorial and get emotional, or thankful to be living in a better time.