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so delighted to be here with you all I'm
thrilled to be here representing the
newest Museum the Smithsonian's National
Museum of african-american history and
culture the museum just celebrated its
first year anniversary and opened in
September of 2016 but it has been nearly
a century in the making starting around
1918 just after World War one
african-american soldiers returned to
the United States and a few men started
a campaign for monument to honor black
soldiers after a lot of fits and starts
and the museum opened on the last
available spot on the National Mall
location location location I think where
the museum is situated and epitomizes
this year's AIGA conference theme of
connection because the museum sits at
the corner of 14th and Constitution
Avenue next to the Washington Monument
across the street from the White House
and next to the National American
History Museum all of these things
together symbolize America's principles
and values and signify the undeniable
connection between the American story
and african-american history a story
that more than three million visitors
have come to witness and experience
since the museum opened so I started my
path as a curator about two decades ago
so when my colleagues wanted to go
straight into a ph.d program I decided
to go straight into museums because I
knew I wanted to create spaces that
lived beyond the walls of the ivory
tower so I grew up in Detroit where
images and art and culture were all
around me and friends and family lined
the hallways of our house and crowded
our man
but these photographs had a special
significance for me they served as
sacred objects objects like this picture
of my great-grandmother it was taken at
the turn of the century in Frankfort
Kentucky where she migrated from to
Detroit and this photograph was so
powerful for me because while I was
fortunate to grow up with her for most
of my adolescence she really didn't look
like this
when I was around her and so it marks a
moment it reminds me that behind those
eyes and that hair and that ornate top
the things that are so carefully crafted
is also a rich story a story that is
within me so this photo sits on my desk
in my home office with all of its
bruises its need for conservation its
marks and stains but they serve as a
reminder that despite all the struggles
and winding paths that one might take
we're still here and this picture is
proof so I know that images can tell a
story like this one of my grandmother
and great-grandmother that was taken
outside of my great-grandmother's house
that she owned on the east side in this
house was used as a boarding house for
people migrating from the south to the
north seeking better opportunities like
she did while the house is no longer
there the memory of it exists it exists
for my mother and her siblings so again
this photo becomes a window into memory
a memory like this one of my mom and me
when I was about 8 years old this
photograph was taken we're outside of
another friend's house in Detroit but
this picture it serves as inspiration
for me to remember that self assured
hand on her hip precocious little girl
that was my eight-year-old self and so
it documents and
distance when I started at the museum
about five years ago this was the
photograph that greeted me on my desk it
was a tintype a portrait of a nameless
young black girl with haunting eyes and
a stoic expression she's wearing jewelry
that someone took time to paint and it
was which was a practice popular in the
19th century but like so many of the
objects in our collection it was donated
to the museum without any information
except that it came from around the 8th
circuit of the 1850s so knowing that I
realized that you know there's all
likelihood this young girl was still
enslaved and but I wondered what's her
name what was her life like but her gaze
even in that sort of you know in
enslaved situation she still appears
very self-assured her gaze is straight
forward in her pose and posture a
straight-backed I figure she's about 13
or 14 but her life story sparked an
imagination for me and it's that
curiosity that keeps me going that burns
inside of me as I continue this
exhausting work then there's this other
image this is a image that I that also
greeted me and I literally gasped when I
first saw it it haunted me because it
came with a whole collection of other
children's images and some other sort of
stereotypical books but this was
literally a one-of-a-kind it's the only
one we have in our collection and it
shows and when I first showed this photo
to some other colleagues they kind of
brushed it off as like you know oh this
is typical of what was usually seen
where children were the sort of being at
the foreground and so what they would
cover the other adult figure but you
know knowing African American history
and culture this felt a little bit more
sinister for me so I felt like you know
even though it despite any of you know
sort of these kind of calm
practices this person is literally being
rendered invisible so part of my work is
to reclaim the stories that are
fundamentally American but either have
been lost or forgotten again sort of
like this early photograph of a photo by
african-american photographer named JP
ball he was a prominent photographer
that traveled all across the South in
the West he even had a short stint here
in Minnesota and he decided I think to
reside in these places where now people
wouldn't currently think of having a
large thriving african-american
communities this picture for instance
was taken in Helena Montana in 1887 so
you know you think really like there was
this whole movement obviously of African
Americans that were moving to the west
and he stayed there for a while until he
was literally thrown out of the city for
taking a triptych of a black man who had
been who who had been lynched the man's
name was William bigger staff he had a
photo of him similar to this one sitting
in his studio in JP ball studio then
wearing a three-piece great three-piece
suit then the next photo the man same
outfit is hooded with a rope hanging
around him with two white men flanking
him and he's dead the next photo that JP
ball took is that same man same outfit
in a coffin and it was a remarkable
photograph that ended up in the
african-american newspaper at the time
and that photograph ended up having him
run out of town so maybe this picture is
you know again a document of that moment
but also reminds us that you know we can
look at how these people and how
communities ended up leaving certain
areas that were at one point a vibrant
or thriving opportunity and now have a
very small african-american community so
these are the things that I look at and
I uncover so as I mentioned earlier the
museum began
you know a while ago with this strong
fight to get open but in earnest it
started around 2006 and so a lot of my
colleagues they're about 12 exhibitions
at the Museum that are permanent
exhibitions except the one I curate I
had nine months to create an exhibition
in a temporary gallery space and so I
went back with that challenge I went
back to the first day and those earlier
images and images like this one and I
scoured the 19 thousand photographs that
we have in our collection to find a
pattern and what I ended up with was a
show I called everyday Beauty this
somatic exhibition is located within
what David I J cause the jewel box of
the museum it covers a hundred years the
show covers a hundred years and a
hundred images reflecting the growing
body of the museum's treasures I should
point out that the museum's collection
is primarily based on the generosity of
people willing to dig through their
attics and basements and share some of
their treasured objects so these family
heirlooms are the cornerstone of what
has become our collection so while one
individual story or one individual
object may tell a story when they're
seen collectively they become a symbol
for freedom resilience fortitude and
community and so I feel like the beauty
of found photographs or vernacular
photography also reveals a story about
everyday life in the United States about
births death
weddings education travel community
service and these also sort of serve as
this counter narrative to these kind of
flat one-dimensional understandings of
people so this is what I unpack in this
exhibition every day Beauty this the
photo star from around the 1870s about
five years after emancipation and they
go on until like the 70s early 80s and
they show a sweep of black light
it's broken up into five categories
self-representation is the first one and
it really looks at sort of this is an
important area I think for us to really
kind of explore and examine and so I
look at regional photographers like this
one of Laura Fitzpatrick who literally
took her son when I got this work he
said to me my mom said always she didn't
have a father but she had a camera so
this is the way in which she was able to
like understand herself learn about her
community and be able to share that so
much so that she ended up creating what
she called a rooftop studio in
Williamsburg Brooklyn and so what I have
with her is a collection of photographs
that show her and her friends and her
family from with a finite period of time
from 1937 to 1947 and they really become
a snapshot of african-american life and
culture in Brooklyn before during and
after World War two other works that we
have are things like this one of Jamel
Shabazz who unless you're really into
hip-hop a lot of people don't know his
work and he ended up photographing youth
culture in the 70s and 80s and he told
me that he felt it was important to sort
of allow these stories in these voices
of people who have often been seen or
discounted as nuisance or you know
troublemakers that he wanted to show off
their humanity their swag and their
style and so that's what he did but in
the midst of that we also have another
sort of work that I'm really involved in
and that's collecting African American
home movies this is a hugely
underrepresented area within the
scholarship of visual culture but these
home movies I feel like reflects a
visual footnote and are another way to
explore how people are presented so you
have you know this work that you just
saw by Jay Max
who literally was the father of max bond
jr. who was one of the first predominant
african-american architects and who
helped to build our museum or the work
of Cab Calloway that showed off his you
know daughter Cabella and and their fun
times or this work by that bed-stuy
youth in action that was really used to
sort of help promote social life in the
60s and then we have this amazing work
by SS Jones that looks at black life in
Oklahoma in the 20s
after the Tulsa riots where there is to
show this thriving community and we have
like nine reels of this work and you see
you know folks with oil wells and own
schools and farms and you have this you
know visual representation of
african-american cultural life with
baptisms and sacred rituals and that is
what we are sort of committed to showing
and showcasing and so that is what takes
up the theme of self-representation we
move off into education and uplift as
well to really kind of determine and
look at some of the things that were so
often taken sort of you have the
segregation and people weren't sort of
denied the same opportunities to have a
decent education so you have
photographers like Addison Scurlock one
of DC's most pronounced african-american
photographers who had a business from
the 1900s
it added to the 19th until 1980 actually
and he was so powerfully sort of
respected that people would say if
Scurlock studio did not take a picture
at your wedding then you were not
married so this is you know an archive
that we have of his work of all of the
dignitaries that he took pictures of but
also of his family growing up he taught
his children how to take pictures even
Jackie Kennedy to pick a tip a photo
class with them
in their studio in DC so this sort of
shows how important some of the
african-american photographers were in
the early sort of turn of the century
then we look at courtship and family and
I found this was really critical to kind
of allow us to see people in other ways
so this photograph by James Corrales of
Martin Luther King in his home with his
son Dexter I think provides a different
insight into Martin Luther King it helps
us to kind of understand maybe some of
the other things that were driving him
to be the great humanitarian that he was
or it's important to look at someone's
work like Henry Clay Anderson again for
me it's important to showcase the known
photographers and sort of known entities
along with some of these lesser-known
experiences so this picture is a wedding
photograph for shippin family five but
it's of Henry Clay Anderson who is this
amazing photographer who took pictures
in Greenville Mississippi in the heart
of Jim Crow segregation so from the 40s
to the 70s
he's showcasing we always have these in
images of folks from the you know sort
of Jim Crow era that it was downtrodden
and poverty and all of this going on but
he's providing us a whole nother way of
understanding and experiencing African
American life and culture and so these
are sort of the things in which drive me
as a curator to kind of think about and
explore and examine and then we go into
work and play so you can work but then
you want to have some good times as well
so you have this wonderful work by w
Eugene Smith that looks at you know
domestic work in the 30s in Georgia but
I love the juxtaposition of her when
she's not at work and while she looks
and so I think that that's important to
also show to provide context to examine
things like the work of you know the 70s
of Lloyd Yearwood and this great
photograph of like guys on a unicycle
playing basketball in the street
Haarlem like how amazing is that I think
it's great and then you have you know
fun stuff of young kids who are taking a
you know working and this is a work of
teenie Harris that really kind of
documented black life in Pittsburgh from
again the 40s through the 70s and to
keep in mind a lot of these photographs
and photographers were able to document
this work and document community because
they were working for and and for black
newspapers to be honest and so they were
entrenched in the community they had an
insider perspective and they had amazing
access and that's important for us to be
able to have that access but faith and
activism is sort of the ground sort of
foregrounds a lot of this work as well
so you have work like this piece by a
photographer named Fred Frank Dandridge
who literally was taking this amazing
picture of this young woman Gloria
Richardson who you know was protesting
some national guard's as she's walking
in Cambridge Maryland fighting for the
civil rights and against housing
discrimination he took this photograph I
literally get got a phone call that
someone was saying that these photos
were about to be discarded from a pawn
shop because Frank Dandridge was
destitute he gave him to a pawn shop and
they didn't know anything about him or
this work mind you he is one of the most
preeminent photographers who's helped us
to sort of see some of the violence a
lot of those four little girls and the
bombings in Alabama and he took those
pictures and they were about to be
thrown away from a pawn shop so it's
this kind of stuff that we're looking to
do or life-changing moments like this
one that came when we found this work
from a whole collection of Civil Rights
material that came to us and discovering
treasures is like a really fun part of
my job so this footage was taken by a
woman named Donna Chalmers she had
traveled to Alabama to participate in
the march on the March with her husband
after
from the Peace Corps and she was
unfortunately she fell ill and she
wasn't able to March so they took this
footage and they drove and she all so
when I we had this sort of we've got the
footage we also ended up having her
information attached to it we called her
and literally when we called her she
burst into tears she had not known where
this footage had actually is she had
lost it over the years and then not only
that she always felt bad that she never
actually marched she thought that she
had not sort of fully participated in
the democratic process but once she
found out that we had this material in
our collection it allowed her to feel
like her work was being part of a
national conversation and so it was
making that connection not only with her
but knowing now how that work is going
to be part of a larger narrative was
something that really sort of fuels me
and fuels the things that we do so while
documenting the past is critical it's
equally as important to document the
present so collecting the work of
contemporary photographers is important
part of my life like this work of by
Sheila pre bright and other artists that
are documenting the activism
particularly surrounding black lives
matter
so we recognise this as an important
endeavor to sort of recognize and
acknowledge what's happening now and
know that the struggle continues so I
will end with this epigraph that sort of
grounds my exhibition and it is a
statement by frederick douglass who says
daguerreotype s-- ambrotypes i feel like
it's a very prescient quote
daguerreotype s' ambrotypes photographs
and electro types good and bad now adorn
all our dwellings men of all conditions
may see themselves as others see them
what was once an exclusive luxury of the
rich
and great is now within reach of us all
this is not if this is so a sort of
apropos considering the probe sort of
the proliferation of photographs and
images that we have you know sort of
surrounding our hard drives that are
filling up our cell phones but I asked
myself so we have so many images but so
few photographs where do those sacred
images go how can a complicated story be
told in 140 characters we need to figure
out how to move forward and use
photographs both digital images and
artifacts as rich and informed and
important stories to showcase the
dignity resilience and courage stories
that showcase the connection of us all
thank you so I'm struck by this this
idea we saw early images which are very
stark and once upright and then this
self-representation era where you see a
little bit of personality as the and now
we're in this probably over
self-representation era of generating
photographs and photographs I mean I've
done I'm not a super selfie person I've
done like for today and posted them and
but do you see the person who has your
job in a hundred years is having a very
different job because like you have this
one photograph of your great-grandmother
that really focuses your attention and
imagine your great-granddaughter
having a hundred thousand photographs of
you potentially how do you see that as
the as a curator of telling a story in
that change over time Wow amazing great
question I think it's tricky right you
know I feel like it's going to be you
know the contact sheet on steroids it
will be about really being able to kind
of aggregate all of this sort of data
you know and kind of being able to
really understand I think that's where
context and kind of history will help to
shape the ways in which you're able to
distill and kind of disseminate from all
of the noise because there will be just
a company of just you know images oh you
want my side profile oh you know I you
want my profile you want and I think
that you'll be you'll have to really
that person will really have to kind of
understand and have a reverence for the
quality over the quantity the over the
quantity yeah right right
I also kind of worry about the fact that
there's a hundred thousand photographs
but they're on a hard drive and then one
hard drive dies and I never even think
about saving it or do anything with it I
mean to that point we have you know
started to deal with that even at the
museum where people have corrupted data
or they have you know they're coming in
with this hard driving like how do I do
it what do I do and we are starting to
really help have this program called the
Great Migration play on words where
we're migrating this stuff to you know
the cloud and allowing them to be able
to have access to it because there will
be a time when they won't be able to
find that instead of christening
photograph of their or whatever
you mentioned the significance of the
sort of Museum when the place in the
mall and this is you know just this
beautiful place I'm also just struck by
the architecture of it it's a beautiful
building how does the the mission of the
place and the architect
and all that stuff playing together well
you know I think one of the main
missions and stories of the museum is
you know to tell the American story
through the african-american lens and so
I feel like that is encompassed in this
this space David I J along with J max
bond jr. and a H J Russell there was a
whole kind of contingent of African
American architects that worked on this
building when you think about it you
know it's set up where there are three
floors below that are that are the
history floors and they anchor and
ground the space and I think that is a
symbolic sort of gesture and then you
even have this kind of the way it's
shaped it has a gesture toward Yoruba
and a figure that was really kind of
this it was one sort of a statue that
held a porch up but it also has this
kind of you know reverence idea as well
there's this whole idea or not idea but
the way the building is designed there's
this large kind of even porch like arch
that once you walk through the doors
that that's what you're walking through
through there threshold and that was
considered an idea around the porch
literally and this gathering place so
that is another sort of aspect of the
design and the ways in which the mission
intersect and then most obviously when
you look at the color you know it's very
different than a lot of the Flagstaff
and the stonework that you see
throughout DC and especially with these
monuments it was a conscious decision
that you know as our director says you
know America needs to reckon with its
the stain that is part of this country
as well the stain of history so that was
part of a deliberate choice and then
there's the corona that wraps around
this the the building so that is a sort
of fine sort of
tuned emblem so the symbol of the
blacksmithing a blacksmith tradition
that's very popular in South Carolina
and in know in the in New Orleans and
that is what you see when you walk up to
this grand building and then the little
holes those sort of peekaboo spaces are
all deliberately located within the
museum to give you sort of a window
appearing into another sort of
connection to American history so you
look out from the military gallery and
you literally are looking at the you
gaze over into the Arlington Cemetery
you know you look into another space and
it allows you another connection to
another part of the city and to American
history so there's that connection there
that's amazing and and one of the groups
of architects have worked on that you
showed like some pictures of mechs bond
seen here yes yes I mean and so max bond
was this amazing you know incredible
figure he was an educator he ended up
being like the president of the
University of Liberia in the 50s he was
he taught at Tuskegee Institute as well
as Clark Atlanta but he had the son who
ended up being this incredible architect
who worked on our building before he
passed you know passed away unexpectedly
but he also was the the uncle of Julian
Bond the great civil rights activist so
you know and that's the weird thing
about the museum is that there are all
of these things that end up coming
together and making you know us feel
like this work is something that is
critical to an American discourse and
important to the music important to the
world to see yeah it's an amazing place
I'm so glad you were here to represent
it Rhea combs our buddy
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