Join us on Saturday, May 1 for an international panel discussion, [De]Mapping the Future: Listening to the Historic Origin Body.

“Stories of origin cannot exist without a language to tell them in, without a tongue to carry the words”

(Magdalena Moskolewich, In the Words, In the Bones, 2019)

The panel brings focus to the art reflecting on three often separately considered regions: Central Asia, Eastern Europe and the Caribbean as a way to connect the global concerns with the personal. At the crossroads of diverging languages due to distances beyond geographical and time measures, current decolonial efforts point towards exciting trajectories, on the path from delinking structural national narratives to speculative fiction.

Four historians in dialogue at this intersection:

• Magdalena Moskalewicz (US/Poland), 
• Valeria Ibraeva (Kazakhstan)
• D. Denenge Duyst-Akpem (US/Nigeria)
• moderated by critical geographer Zoltán Ginelli (Hungary)
• Panel introduced by Randi Hopkins (US)

The speakers will reflect on the works in the exhibition In the Words, In the Bones that took place at Mills Gallery at Boston Center for the Arts, May 23–July 21, 2019 curated by Magdalena Moskalewicz. Artists in the exhibition were Marina Leybishkis with “roots” in Central Asia (Uzbekistan), Zsuzsanna Szegedi-Varga in Eastern Europe (Hungary) and Nyugen Smith in the Caribbean (Haiti and Trinidad and Tobago) as they uncover their family histories, examine the contentious heritage of the colonial era and postcommunist ruptures and absences, as they reclaim, revive, and recalibrate narratives. 

The panel is hosted by the Wellesley College Art Department and pays honor to the legacy of artist and scholar Alice Van Vechten Brown at Wellesley. Between 1897 and 1911 Brown initiated the first art history program in the United States at Wellesley College and also a laboratory system for art historical studies, the Wellesley Method. As we globally experience the effects of pivotal shifts from an East-West to North-South mentalities, conversations that connect artists and arts historians are increasingly vital.

For more information about the event, the exhibition being discussed, and the speakers, please see the event website.