How do we recover lives that archives only partially preserve? Drawing on paintings, photographs, and material culture from the 18th century to the present, Jonathan Michael Square, Assistant Professor of Black Visual Culture at Parsons School of Design, explores the ways artists have represented Black presence, belonging, and self-fashioning across time. Centering the Allen’s remarkable Portrait of Two Girls, this lecture considers how images can reveal histories of kinship,
intimacy, and racial formation while also confronting the limits of what we can know. Through close looking and historical inquiry, the talk reflects on art’s power to recover forgotten stories and imagine more expansive histories of America.

Access statement: This event will be held in a wheelchair- and rolling walker-accessible building. The lecture space is wheelchair accessible, with moveable seating. Restrooms are gender-specific and wheelchair-accessible. Listening devices and ASL are currently not scheduled for this event. Most talks will be recorded and available with closed captions on the museum’s YouTube page after the event. Please email access questions to Jill Greenwood, jgreenwo@oberlin.edu.