Founded on what its creator called \"vindicated evidence,\" the Schomburg holds one of the most comprehensive collections of Black art in any public institution — including diaries, correspondence, photographs, poetry, and sculptures by Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller.
In this episode, Crystal Moten, Associate Director of Collections at the Schomburg Center, and Tammi Lawson, curator of the Art and Artifacts Division, discuss how the Center's radical commitment to public access has shaped the recovery of Fuller's legacy, from the two life-size casts of Ethiopia Awakening on permanent display to the manuscript collection that holds her diaries and letters. They reflect on the intellectual labor of Black women artists during the Harlem Renaissance, drawing on Crystal Moten's research on Black women's work, and on the role of speculative thinking in filling the gaps that incomplete archives leave behind, drawing on Saidiya Hartman's framework. They also trace a lineage of Black women sculptors from Fuller through Augusta Savage, Elizabeth Catlett, and Simone Leigh, arguing that Fuller's work was not simply a beginning, but a vanguard.
This special series of Atelier was produced in conjunction with a three-day symposium dedicated to celebrating the work and life of Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller. Across these conversations, we bring together scholars, curators, and other special guests to revisit her legacy and situate it within its historical moment.
The symposium and podcast series were made possible with support from the Columbia Global Paris Center and the Terra Foundation for American Art, and with the participation of the Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Danforth Art Museum at Framingham State University.
Website - globalcenters.columbia.edu/paris
Newsletter - globalcenters.columbia.edu/content/paris-newsletters
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LinkedIn - linkedin.com/company/cgcparis
YouTube - youtube.com/@CGCParis
Host: Marie Doezema
Production: Marie Doezema, Tessa Overvoorde, and Anthony Valette
Editing: Theo Albaric
Music: Robert Schumann’s Rêverie performed by Magdalena Stern-Baczewska
The Columbia Global Paris Center is part of a network of 11 global centers of Columbia University in the City of New York, one of the world's leading academic institutions. The centers serve as knowledge hubs that aim to educate and inspire through research, dialogue, and action. They advance understanding, facilitate partnerships, and build the bridges necessary to tackle our changing world.
Columbia Global brings together the Columbia Global Centers, Columbia World Projects, the Committee on Global Thought, and the Institute for Ideas and Imagination.
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