Schomburg Teen Curators present Syncretic Vibrations 6 PM Thursday, June 14, 2018

Schomburg Teen Curators present: Syncretic Vibrations

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

Thursday, June 14, 2018 from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM (EDT)

New York, NY

Join the 2017-2018 Schomburg Center Teen Curators in celebration as we present our third annual Teen Curators Exhibition, Syncretic Vibrations: Exploring the Mosaic of Blackness through the Melville Herskovits Collection. This exhibit engages in a call and response dialogue with the work of anthropologist, Melville J. Herskovits, who was an American anthropologist who helped establish African and African-American studies in American academia. Herskovits is known for exploring the cultural continuity from African cultures as expressed in African-American communities.

Through research, discussion, and creative investigation, the Schomburg's Teen Curators have reflected on the odyssey of blackness while reflecting upon the question and answers to "who controls how a people are studied, represented and therefore remembered?" The exhibition features an array of student produced mixed-media works poignantly juxtaposed with archival materials from the Schomburg Center's collections.

Photo: Sarramakan Wooden Comb, Suriname. Melville  Herskovits collection, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library.

@SchomburgCenter #SchomburgTeenCurators

--

The Teen Curators Program is an after-school art history enrichment program admitting 30 high school students each year. This art historical knowledge is acquired through curatorial projects and aesthetic engagements with collections at the Schomburg as well as other museums and cultural institutions.  Through these processes students are exposed to behind-the-scenes work of museums and libraries (eg. collecting, preserving, archiving, and interpreting) and the pathways to professional careers in field.  Teen Curators gain knowledge about black art history in the United States and across the world through the study of real works of art at the Schomburg Center and at other art spaces across the City.  Students create exhibitions by researching and writing about art and artists.  Over the course of the program students learn about arts careers and gather behind-the-scenes experiences in museums and libraries.

This tuition-free program uses arts education to increase the historical and cultural literacy of teenagers and promote their artistic, intellectual, and professional engagement. Teen Curators meet at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, engage with its archives and travel to local museums and galleries to advance their art studies.

The Schomburg Teen Curators Program is generously funded by The Pierre and Tana Matisse Foundation.

If you have any questions about the program, please contact the Education Coordinator, Zenzele Johnson at ZenzeleJohnson@nypl.org