This edition of our Reading Group series is facilitated by Zoé Samudzi, who will lead us through a reading and discussion of short excerpts of critical texts in conjunction with Ernest Cole’s House of Bondage. Held on Cole’s birthday, this workshop invites you to ask: How do we look at images of apartheid, of pain and violence? What does it mean to bear witness, and what are the responsibilities that come with doing so? How and when does bearing witness become spectacle? Samudzi will lead us in close looking of Cole’s images. Participants will then have an opportunity to annotate the images with writing they produce during the critical reflections.
Zoé Samudzi is the Charles E. Scheidt Visiting Assistant Professor of Genocide and Genocide Prevention at the Strassler Center at Clark University. Her work engages afterlives of genocide and coloniality, visual studies and the politics of seeing/witnessing, the spatialities of violence, biomedicalization, and the restitution of human remains. She is an associate editor at Parapraxis magazine, and a critic and writer whose work has appeared in Artforum, the Architectural Review, Art in America, Errant Journal, and the New Republic, among other outlets.
This session is part of an ongoing Reading Group series. Our intention is to create space for people to gather to consider a range of perspectives and think critically through a guided reading of key texts that can help illuminate new ways of looking at artwork on view in MoMA’s galleries. Our priority is to create a space that is comfortable enough for participants to take risks with their thinking and possibly find a sense of fellowship, community, and camaraderie with the facilitator and their fellow readers.
Registration
No prior preparation or background is necessary to participate. We will read texts together during the session. This program is free, open to all, and takes place in the galleries.
Registration is required and limited to 20 participants.
Accessibility
American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation and is available for public programs upon request with two weeks’ advance notice. MoMA will make every effort to provide accommodation for requests made with less than two weeks’ notice. Please contact [email protected] to make a request for these accommodations.
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Access and Community Programs are supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).
Major funding is provided by Volkswagen of America, the Agnes Gund Education Endowment Fund for Public Programs, The Junior Associates of The Museum of Modern Art Endowment for Educational Programs, the Jeanne Thayer Young Scholars Fund, and the Annual Education Fund.