Plans are underway for the exhibition to go beyond gallery walls and into the community, demonstrating the interdisciplinary and collaborative nature of Morrison’s work. Womack and the curatorial team are working closely with University and community members to amplify 'Sites of Memory' through new creative and research projects from visual artists, composers, choreographers, and playwrights, showing how Morrison’s work continues to inspire artists, students, and scholars today. One such collaboration is with McCarter Theatre. The planned project invites up to three multidisciplinary artists to campus for a series of visits to the collection, for artist talks, and for classroom visits. Throughout, they will create new work inspired by Toni Morrison’s dramatic adaptation of her short story “Recitatif,” culminating in a weekend of performances of newly commissioned works.
Other projects in the planning stage include a series of graduate and undergraduate courses, featuring exhibition-related content; a symposium bringing together Morrison scholars and artists; and art exhibitions in partnership with Princeton University Art Museum. There are also plans to publish an accompanying catalog, co-edited by Womack and Associate Professor Kinohi Nishikawa.
Inspiration for the title of the exhibition, Womack shared, is derived from Toni Morrison’s essay 'Site of Memory', in which Morrison writes, “On the basis of some information and a little bit of guesswork you journey to a site to see what remains were left behind and to reconstruct the world that these remains imply.”
“Without such incredible archives here at Princeton,” Womack said, “an in-depth exploration of Morrison’s creative process would not be possible.”
Housed at Princeton University Library, the Papers of Toni Morrison include more than 180 linear feet of the Nobel laureate author’s manuscripts, drafts, and proofs for the novels The Bluest Eye (1970), Sula (1973), Tar Baby (1981), Beloved (1987), Jazz (1992), Paradise (1997), Love (2003), A Mercy (2008), Home (2012), and God Help the Child (2015). The papers also include drafts of plays and poems, speeches, editorial work, correspondence, photography, and research material.
“Rather than understanding this archive as fixed in time or institutionally bound,” Womack explained, “the exhibition, like Morrison, understands the archive to be flexible, contingent, ephemeral, and always open for negotiation. That is, as a site of active and collaborative memory-making.”
One important archival aspect of 'Sites of Memory' that Womack emphasized is how the exhibition demonstrates the ways Morrison’s works operate as archives of Black life. “The exhibition,” Womack said, “celebrates an archive of Black life and history that was curated on its own terms, a project that has never been more urgent.”
The exhibition is curated by Autumn Womack, Assistant Professor of African American Studies and English with curatorial contributions from Jennifer Garcon, Librarian for Modern and Contemporary Special Collections, Rene Boatman, Technical Administrative Assistant, Special Collections, Kierra Duncan, graduate student, Department of English, Andrew Schlager, graduate student, Department of English.
The exhibition will be open to the public Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from noon to 6 p.m. through June 4, 2023.
