Forum

Forgoing the expected stylization—be it the imperative: Correct history! a call to revise and rewrite it, or the interrogative, Correct history?, questioning whether there might be a singular narrative—the asterisk in the title Correct History* suggests a more conditional and hypothetical approach.

Over three days, the VLC Forum 2024 explores the ways in which history and historiography invariably function as acts of correction and revision while examining some of the ideological mechanisms that drive them. Discursive strands come together to consider how historical narratives and ideological formations are created, edited, altered, and contested, including historical revisionism, whitewashing, and rehabilitation by state and other hegemonic political actors.

The phrase correct history has many meanings. An early, sardonic use can be found in Naeem Mohaiemen’s 2014 exhibition and book Prisoners of Shothik Itihash (Prisoners of Correct History), presented at the Kunsthalle Basel and curated by Adam Szymczyk, which Mohaiemen revisits for the VLC Forum. Focusing on art, exhibition-making, and cultural practice writ large, the VLC Forum brings together scholars, artists, and curators whose reparative and recuperative artistic strategies point toward ways of redressing historical injustice, restitution of artifacts, and negotiating conflict and historical relatedness.

Speakers consider various modes of cultural production and their significant role in reinscribing into the record voices and events that have been erased, silenced, and omitted by the violence of history. Harkening back to the first Correction* seminar with scholar Cresa Pugh, who argues that the plundering of the Benin Bronzes was itself an act of “historical revisionism” by imperial powers, this closing convening closes the loop to argue for poetic, artistic, and speculative forms of history-making that imagine new futures amid ongoing attempts at narrative control, denialism, censorship, and repression of peoples and their stories. Participants include: Sofía Gallisá Muriente, Andrea Geyer, Adam HajYahia, Natalia Lassalle-Morillo, Naeem Mohaiemen, Kent Monkman, Carlos Motta, Larissa Nez, Mahdi Sabbagh, Zoé Samudzi, Hande Sever, Selfless Abandon (Miriam Parker and Luke Stewart) and Nathan Young.

Schedule:

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24 | VLC FORUM DAY ONE

6:30–8:30 pm EDT
Re-visioning Native Histories
The New School, Wollman Hall
65 West 11th Street, 5th Floor
New York City

In an expansive conversation introduced and moderated by VLC Borderlands Curatorial Fellow Larissa Nez (Diné), Cree artist Kent Monkman joins Nathan Young, a member of the Delaware Tribe of Indians, revisit some of the foundational narratives of the so-called United States of America, centering Indigenous figures, events, and narratives that have been erased or denied as part of the settler-colonial project. This program launches the VLC Forum 2024 and includes a festive reception.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25| VLC FORUM DAY TWO

6:30–8 pm EDT
Keynote: Naeem Mohaiemen: Prisoners of Shothik Itihash
The New School, Sheila C. Johnson Design Center/Parsons
Kellen Auditorium, 66 Fifth Avenue, Ground Floor
New York City

The phrase correct history has many meanings. An early, sardonic use can be found in Naeem Mohaiemen’s 2014 exhibition and book Prisoners of Shothik Itihash (Prisoners of Correct History). In his keynote lecture, Mohaiemen revisits this project and invites us to think about the corrosive, state-enforced, obedient, and hagiographic histories that have insisted on a single narrative at every bend of Bangladesh’s journey since the partition of British India.

8–10 pm EDT
VLC Forum 2024 Community Dinner
The New School, Wollman Hall
65 West 11th Street, 5th Floor
New York City

Each year, the VLC Forum is anchored by the Community Dinner, which gathers program participants, the VLC and New School communities, and the public for a free dinner and celebration for all. This year’s dinner features music and a special performance by Selfless Abandon, a collaboration between visual artist and performer Miriam Parker and soundmaker and composer Luke Stewart.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 26 | VLC FORUM DAY THREE

11 am–12:30 pm EDT
Queer(ing) History
The New School, Starr Foundation Hall
63 Fifth Avenue, Lower Level
New York City

Andrea Geyer, Adam HajYahia, and Carlos Motta discuss their work as artists, researchers, and curators to explore approaches to recuperating and rehistoricizing the obscured and erased pasts of women, queer people, and sex workers. More than simply rewriting inclusive histories and expanding the canon, queer approaches to historiography question the very construction of history as a singular, linear, universal experience that always undergirds notions of empire, nationhood, and heteropatriarchy.

Followed by lunch for everyone

1:15–2:30 pm EDT
Relative Histories
The New School, Starr Foundation Hall
63 Fifth Avenue, Lower Level
New York City

Thinking through and beyond historical relatedness, relations, and relativism of past and ongoing colonial negation, imperial violence, and genocide, Palestinian architectural scholar and urbanist Mahdi Sabbagh and writer and genocide scholar Zoé Samudzi take on the coloniality of the museum, the ethnographic archive, and architecture. They discuss the role of objects and rituals in reckoning with history, narrating counter histories and the potential for solidarity and liberation across past and ongoing struggles.

2:45–4 pm EDT
Tactics of Transmission
The New School, Starr Foundation Hall
63 Fifth Avenue, Lower Level, New York City

Since 2022, artists Sofía Gallisá Muriente and Natalia Lassalle-Morillo have researched Puerto Rican collections and holdings at the Smithsonian Institution. Their performance lecture Tactics of Transmission, which closes out the VLC Forum along with a reception, reflects on their experiences as unruly colonial subjects navigating the imperial archive, as well as on the historical gossip, findings, and revelations from their research process.

This program is co-presented with The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center as part of Historias, a multiyear initiative exploring Latinx New York’s transformative impact on the city.