OCAD University Open Research Repository

Diasporic Spidering, Counter-Archiving, and Collective Memory

McDermott, Dedra (2024) Diasporic Spidering, Counter-Archiving, and Collective Memory. Masters thesis, OCAD University.

Item Type: Thesis
Creators: McDermott, Dedra
Abstract:

Diasporic Spidering, Counter-Archiving, and Collective Memory is an experimental exhibition that aims to foster community through interdisciplinary and intercultural collaboration and uncover a process of critical curatorial practice. This exhibition displays select videos from Rhodnie Désir’s BOW’T TRAIL and features a commissioned sculptural installation by Alberto Castillo titled Silk Strands, Silk Traces. Travelling across the Americas to experience the ports and portals of ancestral memory that exist within the aftermath of Transatlantic Slave Trade, Désir’s BOW’T TRAIL offers a poignant yet poetic entry into the histories of migrants who left voluntarily and involuntarily. Considering the global map as a web further situates Désir’s choreographic methodology as a ‘diasporic spidering,’ itself. Nadine George-Graves explains that “Diasporic heritage survives despite the odds, and Anansi’s processes of journeying, gathering (wisdom and memory), gaining insight, sharing, and connecting are diasporic spiderings.” Experimental in nature, Diasporic Spidering, Counter-Archiving, and Collective Memory explores my emergent curatorial practice as a ‘diasporic spidering,’ utilizing Desir's choreo-documentary methodology and the creation process of Silk Strands, Silk Traces as research materials. This exhibition uses the gallery space as a site for valuing choreographic methodology as an artistic product as a way of celebrating the multiplicity of Black thought, history, and communities, now.

Date: 1 May 2024
Uncontrolled Keywords: Keywords: Transnationalism, Black Performance Theory, Diasporic Spidering, Counter-Archiving, Visual Art, Collective Memory, Identity, Collaboration, Reinterpretation, Choreographic Practice
Divisions: Graduate Studies > Criticism and Curatorial Practice
Date Deposited: 08 May 2024 15:05
Last Modified: 08 May 2024 15:05
URI: https://openresearch.ocadu.ca/id/eprint/4432

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