An institution founded to welcome American women artists once turned Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller away at the door. Decades later, bringing a symposium on Fuller to that same place, Reid Hall, was a deliberate act of reckoning.
In this episode, Robert O’Meally, Zora Neale Hurston Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, and Brune Biebuyck, director of Reid Hall and the Columbia Global Paris Center, reflect on what the symposium uncovered—and where it might lead next. O’Meally considers Fuller alongside figures including Bessie Smith, Frederick Douglass, and Henry Ossawa Tanner, tracing a shared impulse toward self-determination and artistic freedom. Biebuyck reflects on the symposium as an act of reparation and looks ahead to what could follow: annual gatherings, future residencies, and perhaps even a sculpture inspired by Fuller’s work at Reid Hall.
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
Instagram - instagram.com/cgcparis
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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