Semester.ly

Johns Hopkins University | AS.362.241

Seeing The Unspeakable: Baltimore, #Blm, and Kara Walker

3.0

credits

Average Course Rating

(4.36)

The advents of smartphone technology, social media platforms, and the 24-hour cable news cycle has made violent images of Black death and dying ubiquitous. The public consumes these images unremittingly and social movements have used these images to highlight the vulnerable character of Black life globally. However, questions remain as to whether these images work as tools of populist politicization or as sources of entertainment for viewers unsympathetic to the various politics expressed by the Black Lives Matter movement. This course seeks to explore this uncomfortable reality through the artistic renderings of Kara Walker, an acclaimed mixed media artist whose provocative explorations of race, sexuality, and violence offer one lens by which explore this political phenomenon. Additionally, students will spend the semester creating multimedia archival projects that explore these images and their political impact on Baltimore. In doing so, students will explore the politics bound within, pressed upon, and interpreted from the Black body.

Spring 2017

Professor: Bryan Carter

(4.36)