For the first time since its inception, the Lunder Institute Summer Think Tank will feature a series of public programs, consisting of live performances, film screenings, and workshops developed and presented by the participants, which will provide the Colby Museum’s audiences with a unique opportunity to learn from the think tank as it’s happening. All programs are free and open to all!

Week 3: America as Nation, Geography, Project & Myth
Guest Curator: Dell Marie Hamilton, artist, writer, curator; interim director of Cooper Gallery at Harvard University's Hutchins Center for African & African American Research

This week's conversations are inspired by guest curator Dell Marie Hamilton and collaborator Angela Counts current project, which engages speculative fiction, performance and public art to retell the story of Mark, Phillis, and Phoebe, three enslaved individuals who were tried in 1755 Boston for the murder of their master. Bringing together a group of Black artists, scholars, curators and cultural leaders, the cohort will be invited to engage with performance as a mode through which to contextualize America as nation, geography, project, and myth. In particular, the group will contend with the relationship between performance and the camera, which can be understood not only as a technology of documentation but also as a witness (i.e. the lens as audience). Rooted in the specificities of Black performance, the cohort will also consider the multiplicity of roles that Black practitioners must assume in order to build and sustain a career in contemporary art particularly as they grapple with the implications of American authoritarianism.

On July 2, Dell Marie Hamilton and Angela Counts will screen film-based performance works, followed by a Q&A with the audience.