Picturing the Pandemic: Curation, Collaboration, and the Power of Journaling
Tuesday, November 15, 2022
6:00pm – 7:00pm
VIA ZOOM
A faculty dialogue with Sarah S. Willen (Anthropology) and Alexis L. Boylan (Africana Studies/Art and Art History), co-curators of "Picturing the Pandemic: Images from the Pandemic Journaling Project" at Hartford Public Library Downtown. Held in conjunction with the upcoming exhibition, "Seeing Truth: Art, Science, Museums, and Making Knowledge" . Zoom webinar registration link: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_5v2nhX1wSY2LquocxUukgQ
The exhibition "Picturing the Pandemic: Images from the Pandemic Journaling Project", features a selection of the images created as part of an innovative experiment with online journaling. Exhibition collaborators Sarah S. Willen, UConn Associate Professor of Anthropology and Pandemic Journaling Project (PJP) co-founder, and Alexis L. Boylan, Director of Academic Affairs at UConn Humanities Institute and Professor of Africana Studies and Art and Art History, discuss the power of journaling, what it was like to collaboratively curate a show, what truth we can find in images of the pandemic, and the importance of our communal participation in visual record and memory of the pandemic. Held in conjunction with the upcoming exhibition, "Seeing Truth: Art, Science, Museums, and Making Knowledge".
The Pandemic Journaling Project is a historical archive effort created in partnership between UConn and Brown University. It is a project dedicated to remembering the experiences and perspectives of a wide range of people living through the COVID-19 pandemic. The PJP recognizes that the narrative of history is usually dominated by the powerful, so the project aims to tell the stories of ordinary people when recounting this historical pandemic. Participants answer a set of survey questions and a few open-ended journaling questions; they are asked to follow up with answering a new set of questions every week until the pandemic is over. Participation is voluntary and anonymous. So far, the PJP has collected over 14,000 submissions from more than 45 countries. For more information, visit https://pandemic-journaling-project.chip.uconn.edu/ "Seeing Truth: Art, Science, Museums, and Making Knowledge" (January 17 to March 10, 2023 at the Benton Museum) seeks to challenge audiences to see art, science, and truth anew in this political moment. Through innovative curation, critical dialogue, a drive to engage new and diverse voices, and creative strategies for constructing a socially just and sustainable traveling exhibition, Seeing Truth will join with the public in wrestling with important questions concerning truth and knowledge-making. The exhibition at the Benton puts instigator objects from the American Museum of Natural History in New York City in dialogue with items from UConn collections, including the William Benton Museum of Art; Archives & Special Collections, UConn Library; and the Biodiversity Research Collections in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; in addition to works from area museums.
THE WILLIAM BENTON MUSEUM OF ART
University of Connecticut
School of Fine Arts
245 Glenbrook Road
Storrs, CT
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For more information, contact: The Benton Museum at 860-486-4520