Curator’s Perspective: Miranda Lash

As part of ICI’s Curator’s Perspective—an itinerant public discussion series featuring national and international curators—Miranda Lash (Curator of Contemporary Art, Speed Art Museum) will present on the realities and mythologies associated with the American South, and why it remains among of the most contested topics in our understanding of American national identity.

Drawing on lessons learned from curating in the South for twelve years, Lash will discuss the development of the exhibition Southern Accent: Seeking the American South in Contemporary Art, a large-scale project co-organized with Trevor Schoonmaker (Chief Curator at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University), and her experience hosting a large public convening on confederate symbols and memorials led by artists and historians in October 2017.

Is curating in the American South different from curating elsewhere? Lash will explore how curatorial strategies about the American South and the “Global South” have been applied to international platforms such as the triennial Prospect New Orleans and smaller organizations dedicated to preserving local histories. Lash was a member of the Artistic Director’s Council for Prospect.4, which closed in February 2018. In April 2018 she opened the exhibition Breaking the Mold: Investigating Gender at the Speed Art Museum. In conjunction with this exhibition she organized a programming series called “Dialogues on Gender” which addresses issues ranging from feminism to trans advocacy in partnership with Dr. Kaila Story and Jaison Gardner, the Kentucky-based hosts of the NPR program “Strange Fruit.”

Lash will put forth a more expansive idea of the South, exploring it as a potent, volatile, and ultimately malleable concept, which has exerted considerable influence over the politics, emotions, and memory of this country. She will also advocate for increased collaboration and understanding between the coasts and the “heartlands” is in the interest of all arts institutions moving forward.

This event is free and open to the public. To attend, please RSVP to rsvp@curatorsintl.org with MIRANDA in the subject line.

The Curator’s Perspective is a free, itinerant public discussion series featuring U.S. and international curators, and developed as a way for audiences in New York to connect with timely information about a wide variety of international perspectives on contemporary art today. The series sheds light on movements and models that are still in formation or have been overlooked. This year, speakers in the series will include curators based in Berlin, Cape Town, Louisville, and San Juan, addressing questions about art, culture, and the exhibitions in which they are most interested, as well as the artists and the socio-political contexts that are shaping curatorial practice now.

The Curator’s Perspective series has been made possible, in part, by grants from the Hartfield Foundation and by generous contributions from the ICI Board of Trustees and ICI Access Fund. This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with City Council.

Presented by Parsons Fine Arts.