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.

Thursday, October 30, 2014

Ishiuchi Miyako: ‘Here and Now: Atomic Bomb Artifacts, Hiroshima 1945/2007’


The photographer Ishiuchi Miyako has photographed the remanning fragments from the bombings of Hiroshima in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum as an extension of her previous work. She has photographed, for several years now, images of places, objects and people that outline and define her history. She is bringing that kind of attention to the artifacts remaining from a darker part of American History and in a beautiful way.

"Ms. Ishiuchi visited Hiroshima for the first time in 2007, on assignment from a Japanese publishing house to photograph artifacts stored at theHiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. She focused on personal effects of people who died in the bombing, specifically on materials that had had direct contact with the dead. She recently collected more than 200 images in a limited-edition book, from which this show is drawn."

You can read the rest of the article on the link below:

link: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/17/arts/design/ishiuchi-miyako-here-and-now-atomic-bomb-artifacts-hiroshima-1945-2007.html

-Kevin Houlahan

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