Archival Imaginaries of Black Life

Join a conversation between artists J. Yolande Daniels NA and Alexandra Bell, moderated by Gee Wesley, on public memory, collective history, and the archival imaginaries of Black life. In Bell’s “Counternarratives” series, the artist inserts corrections and redactions into the "official record” of reports from The New York Times, highlighting how news media can influence the way Black life is commemorated, misrepresented, or entirely erased. Similarly, J. Yolande Daniels’s work Calle Block employs architectural research and sociological data to uncover racial discrimination in Western spatial designs, institutions, and laws, and to illustrate how African Americans have created freedom and community by shaping their surrounding spaces. In this discussion, Daniels and Bell will explain how their projects craft counternarratives of Black life informed by journalism, sociological data, or historical documents. Together, the artists will discuss how they engage with and challenge these archival records to expose biases and bear witness to the past.

RESERVATIONS: Admission is free but reservations are required.

ACCESSIBILITY: This venue is fully accessible to wheelchairs. To request free ASL (American Sign Language) interpretation or CART (Communication Access Real-Time Translation) captioning service, email your request at least three weeks in advance of the event to [email protected].

About the Speakers

Alexandra Bell is an interdisciplinary artist who investigates the complexities of narrative production, consumption, and perception by exploring the tension between marginal experiences and dominant histories. Through investigative research, she considers the ways media frameworks control how narratives involving Black communities are depicted and in turn disseminated under the aegis of journalistic “objectivity.” She considers a range of media, such as dictionaries, style guides, early broadsides, and broadcast news as central to the formation of collective identities. By physically outlining and revising editorial frameworks, she attempts to make visible the white racial hegemony of today’s most revered institutions by imparting the power of interpretation and definition to the collective public. She is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships including the International Center of Photography’s Infinity Award (2018), Sarah Arison Artadia Award (2020), and a Radcliffe Fellowship at Harvard University (2022). Her work has been exhibited at Jeffrey Deitch Gallery, MoMA PS1, Whitney Museum of American Art, and We Buy Gold among others. She received her B.A. in Humanities from University of Chicago and an M.S. from Columbia University’s School of Journalism.

J. Yolande Daniels NA is an Associate Professor in Architecture at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Daniels is a co-founding principal of the architecture and design practice, studioSUMO. Daniels is a fellow and recipient of the Rome Prize in Architecture and a fellow of the Independent Study Program of the Whitney American Museum of Art in studio practice and cultural studies. Daniels’ design research investigates how societal ideas of race and gender influence spatial relationships and the construction of objects and places. Both the collaborative practice and her individual projects have been recognized for design excellence by the Venice Biennale, Japan National Design Council, German National Design Council, Chicago Athenaeum, AIA New York City Chapter, AIA New York State, New York State Council on the Arts and New York Foundation for the Arts, American Academy of Arts and Letters, Emerging Voices, Design Vanguard, and the League Prize. Daniels received an M. ARCH. from the Graduate School of Architecture at Columbia University in 1990 and a B.S. ARCH. from the City College of New York in 1987.

Gee Wesley is an arts organizer born in Monrovia, Liberia, and based in Providence, RI, where he is a PhD student at Brown University in the Department of Modern Culture and Media. His work explores the relationship between publics and publications and how the cultural practices of Black diasporas inspire liberatory ways of redefining knowledge, transforming value, and restoring the past. Wesley has held roles as a Curatorial Associate at The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Program Director at Recess, Brooklyn; Curatorial Fellow at SculptureCenter, Queens; and Curatorial Fellow at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia. Wesley has been adjunct faculty at Bennington College, the Maryland Institute College of Art, and the Yale School of Art. He is a cofounder of Ulises, a nonprofit art bookshop based in Philadelphia, and the founder of Afrophon', a project dedicated to contemporary African artists’ books, art books, and independent art publishing. Wesley received his MA from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College.

Image: J. Yolande Daniels NA, detail of Calle Block, 2020. Courtesy of the Artist.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

Get App

Host or Publisher National Academy of Design