鈥淪ome things you forget. Other things you never do. But it鈥檚 not. Places, places are still there. If a house burns down, it鈥檚 gone, but the place鈥攖he picture of it鈥攕tays, and not just in my rememory, but out there, in the world. What I remember is a picture floating around out there outside my head. I mean, even if I don鈥檛 think it, even if I die, the picture of what I did, or knew, or saw is still out there. Right in the place where it happened.鈥�
鈥� Toni Morrison, Beloved
After a semester spent exploring the potential future of art as a tool for democracy, The Curb Center is now looking back: at lineage, at family and at collective memory. Programming this semester will be centered on writer Toni Morrison鈥檚 concept of 鈥渞ememory,鈥� defined in her novel Beloved as collective memories, especially those connected to trauma, that can be recollected in some way by those who were not present for those experiences.
This is the framework for visual artist Lanecia Rouse and poet Ciona Rouse鈥檚 collaborative exhibition HAGOOD, now on display at The Curb Center until Dec. 4. These sisters are using mixed-media collage, installation, color meditations and poetry to explore their matrilineal line and the town in which it began: Hagood, South Carolina.
鈥淚t [Hagood, South Carolina] is where our maternal living memory begins,鈥� Ciona Rouse writes. 鈥淗agood is a sort of home鈥攅ven though it mostly exists for us in our infant memory. But there鈥檚 something about the South, something about being Black in the South, something about being Black and woman in the South that makes looking back a necessary way forward.鈥�
The exhibition runs from Sept. 22 to Dec. 4 and will include in which participants will work directly with the artists in collage and poetry-writing exercises that explore familial connection. for the first workshop, which will be on Sept. 24, 4鈥�6 p.m. The second workshop will be on Nov. 1, 11鈥�2 p.m. and will be open for RSVPs soon.
Lanecia Rouse has been awarded the inaugural Berg Global Artist-in-Residence Fellowship in the College of Arts and Science. Her residency is co-hosted by 聽. The fellowship, alongside the Kindred workshops and the creation of HAGOOD, includes a close collaboration with Murphy鈥檚 course, Icons and Monuments. In this course, students are investigating the iconography and imagery surrounding the historic Roger Williams University, a historically Black university that burned down in 1905 and on whose grounds the Peabody College buildings now stand. The centrality of rememory to Lanecia Rouse鈥檚 artistic practice makes her a fitting partner to Murphy and his students as they investigate how institutional memories take shape and get passed down through generations. 鈥淢s. Rouse is helping students develop innovative means of memorializing the nearly invisible history of Roger Williams University,鈥� Murphy writes. 鈥淎t the same time, she is helping us see how creative practice and research can complement one another, and showing us what a deeply thoughtful, ethical and meaningful artmaking looks like.鈥�
Lanecia Rouse is a mixed-media visual artist whose practice includes collage, photography, abstract painting, curation, writing and teaching. Her work has been exhibited by the University Museum at Texas Southern University, Reynolds Gallery, Second Street Gallery and Zeitgeist Gallery among others. Her work was featured in Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage, which debuted at the Frist Art Museum in Nashville before traveling to The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.
Ciona Rouse is a poet, an editor and the author of Vantablack, a chapbook from Third Man Books (2017). Her work has appeared in Oxford American, Wildness, Booth, The Account, Still, Talking River Review, Gabby, Matter and elsewhere. She served as a resident poet for the Nick Cave: Feat. exhibition at Frist Art Museum, culminating in a poem called 鈥淲e,鈥� which was named 2018鈥檚 鈥淏est Poetry Performance鈥� by the Nashville Scene.
Another artist visiting The Curb Center this semester whose work deals with lineage and memory is educator, advocate and flutist Adam Sadberry. He will be visiting Vanderbilt courses, offering a master class to Molly Barth鈥檚 Flute Studio, presenting for The Curb Center鈥檚 undergraduate Curb Scholars, and performing at Turner Hall with pianist Nathan Cheung during a two-day visit co-hosted by Blair School of Music. Sadberry鈥檚 work explores his relationship with his late grandfather, L. Alex Wilson, a prolific journalist with connections to the Civil Rights Movement.
Sadberry has previously been hosted by the Hollywood Bowl, Merkin Hall, Harlem Stage, The Phillips Collection, Barnes Foundation, Chamber Music Detroit, Newport Classical, University of Chicago, Chautauqua Institution and the Eastman School of Music, among other venues.
鈥淭hese artists investigate beliefs about memory, family and community itself by using the past as a tool for artmaking, furthering The Curb Center鈥檚 mission to elevate art as a mode of inquiry,鈥� Leah Lowe said. 鈥淲e are honored to host these artists at The Curb Center and delighted to share their work with communities at Vanderbilt and in Nashville.鈥�
For more information about 鈥淩ememory鈥� and other programming, , or . Vanderbilt faculty can contact Rachel Thompson at rachel.h.thompson@vanderbilt.edu for information about class visits to our gallery space.
