The Pursuit of Nappyness: Community Townhall
Thursday, November 14th 5:00PM est
The Hemispheric Institute invites you to a multi-generational conversation where beauty practitioners will discuss their pivotal role in the community as educators, activists, and leaders. Mellon Artist in Residence Thando Kafele will lead a discussion about the history of Black beauty practices, analyze the salon as a site of resistance, and explore how salons, artists, and veterans in the natural hair industry can continue to empower Black communities.
The event will be moderated by Camille Lawrence, Associate Research Archivist at the Hemispheric Institute.
Past Events
Backstage: An Unfurling of the JPC Beauty & Fashion
Thursday, November 7, 2024, 10 am - 11 am EST (virtual)
Throughout its 75-year history, the Johnson Publishing Company (JPC) showcased the gamut of makeup, hair, skincare, fashion design, and style in Black culture. Elaborate photographic spreads captured the allure and grace of actresses such as Lena Horne and Dorothy Dandridge, runway shows featured models Pat Cleveland, Richard Roundtree, and Naomi Sims, and the images captivated audiences with the latest American and European fashion trends. This conversation with Getty archivist Skyla S. Hearn, Founder of Black Beauty Archive, Camille Lawrence, and historian Dr. Rikki Byrd explores the JPC's coverage of beauty and fashion in magazines like Ebony and JET and the company's overall contribution to the beauty and fashion industries.
Skyla S. Hearn is an archivist, photographer, and writer dedicated to supporting communities marginally reflected in broader historical contexts; centering community archival practices; and committed to amplifying documentation created from first-person perspectives of unsung individuals and groups. Hearn contributes to the ongoing preservation of Black cultural heritage and is a proud Chicagoan.
Dr. Rikki Byrd is a writer, educator, and curator. She is the founder of Black Fashion Archive and the co-founder of the Fashion and Race Syllabus. Byrd is currently assistant professor of visual culture studies at the University of Texas at Austin. She spends her time between Austin and Chicago.
Camille Lawrence is the Founder of the Black Beauty Archive, whose mission is to preserve the rich history of Black Beauty Culture. Lawrence's background as an art historian and beauty practitioner informs her approach to archival work, which focuses on the innovations of artistic expression across the African Diaspora.
The Johnson Publishing Company Archive is owned by Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) and J. Paul Getty Trust. In 2019, a consortium made up of the Ford Foundation, J. Paul Getty Trust, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and Smithsonian Institution acquired the JPC Archive. In 2022, ownership was transferred to NMAAHC and the J. Paul Getty Trust, with a commitment to support archival processing and digitization including physical and digital infrastructure over a seven-year period.
How Did We Get Hair? Black Hair, Artistic Practice, and The Performance of Citizenship
Thursday, September 19 | 5:00 PM
How Did We Get Hair? Black Hair, Artistic Practice, & The Performance of Citizenship is a panel conversation, where beauty practitioners, artists, scholars, and archivists will examine the history of the politicization of Black hair. Mellon Artist in Residence Thando Kafele will lead a conversation with Black hair artists, historians, and archivists to discuss this groundbreaking artistry. Together, they will explore historical milestones in this performance of self, subject, and citizenship.
Fashion & Race Database Case Study: Black Beauty Archive
Saturday, February 24, 2024 1:00 – 2:00pm EST (virtual)
Join us as we present a case study that explores the importance of preserving Black fashion history through the lens of Black beauty culture.
“The Black Beauty Archive collection contains over 1200+ objects including Full Issue Magazines, books, hair tools/hot tools, wigs, cosmetics, photographs, posters, oral histories, interviews, a/v tapes & more! A significant amount of our collection has been recovered, acquired, and donated from elders, artists, and collectors alike. All objects displayed are primary sources preserved within BBA collections, digitized for educational purposes only.”
Founder and Principal Archivist of the Black Beauty Archive, Camille Lawrence, will lead us through a presentation on the evolution of Black Beauty Archive and the importance of this archival work, followed by a Q&A.
We Not New To This, We True To This
February 22, 2024 5-7PM EST
Join us as we launch “We Not New To This, We True To This,” a multi-year initiative curated by the Institute’s Associate Research Archivist Camille Lawrence that seeks to center, preserve, and celebrate the work of the Black archivists, memory workers, and artists who have been the diligent stewards and keepers of the culture for decades.
This multi-year collaboration, made possible by the ongoing support of the Mellon Foundation, will highlight archivists who are forging new methodologies, honor iconic artists who have contributed to the creation and tapestry of ballroom culture, and celebrate elders of African dance and beauty practitioners who continue to reaffirm that beauty is performance art.
Speakers
Kevin “Ultra Omni” Burrus (Mellon Artist in Residence Spring 2024), Thando Kafele (Mellon Artist in Residence Fall 2024), Shani Crowe (Mellon Artist in Residence 2025), Mama Aissatou Bey-Grecia (Folklorist in Residence 2025), Steven Booth (Founder of Blacktivists), Syreeta Gates (Founder of The Gates Preserve), Zainab Floyd (Founder of The Caribbean Archive), and Zakiya Collier (Founder of Black Memory Workers).
Archiving Joy & Trauma: The Humanization of BIPOC Communities
September 18-22, 2023 in Atlanta GA
Project STAND’s Second Residency Program
Project STAND and the AUC Woodruff Library hosted a one-week, in-person residency September 18–22, 2023 in Atlanta, GA. The residency invited six individuals to serve in a cohort to create a digital educational resource as an extension of Project STAND’s Archiving Student Activism Toolkit.
The theme for our second residency was: Archiving Joy and Trauma: The Humanization of BIPOC Communities. The residency focused on amplifying the importance of humanizing the existence of Black, Indigenous, People of Color that represent the global majority. This residency included guest speakers whose work focuses on archiving the humanity of the BIPOC community including the joy, trauma, collective knowledge and experiences, intersectional existence, love, creativity, and everyday lives of members of the BIPOC community. These conversations set the larger stage on the value of the full human experience of those engaged in student organizing. See the list of panelists, speakers, and facilitators below, plus highlights of the residency including photos and videos.
Arts In Education Roundtable: Archive As A Response To Erasure
June 14, 2023 9AM EST
Archiving allows us to preserve stories, histories, and ideologies that make connections between past and present. While archiving has the potential to perpetuate the status quo and diminish narratives of marginalized communities, it can also be used as a tool of disruption and resistance to the erasure of histories that might otherwise be lost to the passing of time or to dominant narratives. Join us for this panel discussion that examines how local communities leverage the power of archiving, collecting, and preserving as a response to erasure and being overlooked.
Panelists:
Kashema Hutchinson, Program Manager
Camille Lawrence, Founder, Black Beauty Archives
Sommer R. McCoy, Chief Curator, Mixtape Museum; Creative Social Impact, BAM
Moderator: Toya Lillard, Executive Director, 651 Arts
Art Basel Miami
RICHES: The Crown We Never Take Off
Dec 02 - Dec 03, 2022
The Crown We Never Take Off is a celebration of Black achievement and a strikingly brilliant exploration of hair customs and rituals so deeply entrenched that neither time nor distance have erased them. This exhibition applauds the overlooked efforts of Black entrepreneurs and creatives with a gifted group of visionaries who, like the Richards family, push boundaries and excel despite the odds.
Connecting traditions to the continent while remaining innovative, these artists weave their own rich histories with the realities of the world to create an affirmative place where Blackness thrives, while synonymously documenting the culture in extraordinary ways. Their work makes a bold statement about the power of African identities, and repositions Eurocentric art history and definitions of beauty.
Prime Video’s RICHES is an alluring, engaging, and artful drama that centers around the Richards family–a Black dynasty in turmoil–as five siblings vie for control of their family’s beauty brand. RICHES allows audiences to see an authentic expression of blackness in traditionally white-owned spaces. The intention of our space is to recreate the feeling of watching Riches for the first time — celebrating the freedom of Black expression and identity. When Black people are the authors of their own identity, we get stories like RICHES; new artforms, new thoughtforms and eventually new trends that permeate through to popular culture.
Iconic Black Art
Harvard University
February 28, 2022
Harvard Community (Winthrop House Race Relations Team) presents a Black History Month panel on Arts, Culture, and Entertainment! Join in the discussion and learn from innovators in Black art, photography, and fashion!
We are excited to welcome Jeremy Bettis of G-Unit Films, Records (Power, Get Rich of Die Tryin), Sommer McCoy of the Universal Hip Hop Museum, and Camille Lawrence of the Black Beauty Archives to Winthrop House (virtually) for a panel on Black, cultural art.
AGENCY + PROCESS
2022 Curator In Residence
The Hemispheric Institute is proud to present Agency + Process #000000, a series of virtual conversations curated by Camille Lawrence celebrating individuals who are shaping the future of memory work, creating outside of traditional archival models. Those featured employ ethical methodologies to access and recover hidden Black histories. Lawrence refers to this intentional practice as “seeing in the dark,” where Black folks have the ability to see themselves where others cannot.
This series will explore, challenge, and celebrate the ways that Black memory workers are taking agency over the preservation, documentation, and representation of Black life, and will feature speakers who are transforming how communities interact and engage with archives and performance art. The series will begin with two events in which archivists discuss ways to address institutional inequities and share their reparative practices in the archives. The subsequent conversations will highlight creatives, archivists, and artists whose work centers Black visibility and the body as an archive.
Hemi is also excited to announce Camille Lawrence as a Mellon Curator in Residence for the 2022 calendar year. Lawrence is an artist and archivist whose work focuses on the diversity of artistic expression across the African Diaspora. To learn more about Lawrence’s work, click here.
These events are made possible by the generous support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation through the "World Making and Social Emergency at the Hemispheric Institute" initiative.
For the Culture – Black Memory and Storytelling on the Web
Archiving The Black Web National Forum, April 29, 2021 1:00PM-2:15PM
Dr. Aleia Brown – Assistant Director, African American History, Culture & Digital Humanities (AADHum) Initiative, Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities
Syreeta Gates, Founder, The Gates Preserve
Renata Cherlise , Founder, Black Archives
Boni Odoemene, Co-Creator, Black and Irish
Camille Lawrence, Founder, Black Beauty Archives
Join us for a lively discussion about remixing and sampling the archive and leveraging social media as a tool to celebrate everyday Black people past and present from across the African diaspora. Dr. Aleia Brown will moderate this session highlighting the work of some brilliant independent Black digital memory workers and their projects. The web and social media platforms in particular have created opportunities for independent memory workers to memorialize Black life in their own ways. Some of the questions this panel will discuss include: What can we learn from the creativity of these projects as the professional archives community shifts more attention towards archiving the Black web? How can we better support the work of independent memory workers building these archives as a way to develop more inclusive and comprehensive models for archiving the Black web? And in what ways can these projects influence scholarship on the Black digital experience?
Society of American Archivists
Black Beauty Archives, Decolonizing the Archive
Zoom Panel Discussion Hosted by The Society of American Archivists, Records Management Group on February 4, 2021, at 2PM EST. Black Beauty Archives founder Camille Lawrence, Celebrity MUA Michela Wariebi, and Columbia Scholar Regan Sommer McCoy will discuss the importance of documenting Black histories of beauty, culture, and identity formation.
A Tribute to Toni Morrison: Archival Tour
On February 25-26th, 2020, archivists Zakiya Collier, Megan Williams, and Camille Lawrence will lead attendees through an archival tour through the lens of Toni Morrison. Although Toni Morrison never made an appearance at BAM, her work as an editor at Random House and Nobel Prize winner in literature is deeply connected to the Black artists, lecturers, and performers who graced BAM’s stages.