Museums should honor the everyday, not just the extraordinary

Who deserves to be in a museum? For too long, the answer has been "the extraordinary" -- those aspirational historymakers who inspire us with their successes. But those stories are limiting, says museum curator Ariana Curtis. In a visionary talk, she imagines how museums can more accurately represent history by honoring the lives of people both extraordinary and everyday, prominent and hidden -- and amplify diverse perspectives that should have always been included.

Representation matters.

Authentic representations of women matter.

I think that too often,
our public representations of women

are enveloped in the language
of the extraordinary.

The first American woman
to become a self-made millionaire:

Madam C. J. Walker ...

The dresses of the first ladies
of the United States ...

Shirley Chisholm, the first woman to seek

the US Democratic party's
presidential nomination --

(Applause)

As a museum curator,

I understand why these stories
are so seductive.

Exceptional women
are inspiring and aspirational.

But those stories are limiting.

By definition, being extraordinary
is nonrepresentative.

It's atypical.

Those stories do not create a broad base
for incorporating women's history,

and they don't reflect
our daily realities.

If we can collectively apply
that radical notion

that women are people,

it becomes easier to show
women as people are:

familiar, diverse, present.

In everyone's everyday throughout history,

women exist positively --

not as a matter of interpretation,
but as a matter of fact.

And beyond a more accurate
representation of human life,

including women considers
the quotidian experiences

of the almost 3.8 billion people
identified as female on this planet.

In this now notorious museum scene
from the "Black Panther" movie,

a white curator erroneously
explains an artifact

to Michael B. Jordan's
character seen here,

an artifact from his own culture.

This fictional scene caused
real debates in our museum communities

about who is shaping the narratives
and the bias that those narratives hold.

Museums are actually rated

one of the most trustworthy sources
of information in the United States,

and with hundreds of millions of visitors
from all over the world,

we should tell accurate histories,

but we don't.

There is a movement
from within museums themselves

to help combat this bias.

The simple acknowledgment
that museums are not neutral.

Museums are didactic.

Through the display of art and artifacts,

we can incite creativity
and foster inclusion,

but we are guilty
of historical misrepresentation.

Our male-centered histories
have left our herstories hidden.

And there are hard truths
about being a woman,

especially a woman of color
in this industry,

that prevents us from centering
inclusive examples of women's lives.

Museum leadership:

predominantly white and male,

despite women comprising
some 60 percent of museum staffs.

Pipelines to leadership
for women are bleak --

bleakest for women of color.

And the presence of women
does not in and of itself guarantee

an increase in women's
public representation.

Not all women are gender equity allies.

In the words of feminist
theorist bell hooks,

"Patriarchy has no gender."

Women can support the system of patriarchy

just as men can support
the fight for gender equity.

And we often downplay
the importance of intersectionality.

Marian Anderson was one of the most
celebrated voices of the 20th century,

and the Smithsonian
collected her 1939 outfit.

After the white Daughters of
the American Revolution denied her access

to sing in Constitution Hall,
because she was black,

she famously sang instead
on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial,

to a crowd of over 75,000 people.

And in libraries all over,
including museums,

you can still find the groundbreaking
1982 anthology, entitled

"All the Women Are White,

All the Blacks Are Men,

But Some of Us Are Brave."

Demands for the increase
of women's representation

does not automatically include
Afro-Latinas like me ...

or immigrant women,
or Asian women, or Native women,

or trans women, or undocumented women,

or women over 65, or girls --

the list can go on and on and on.

So what do we do?

Targeted initiatives
have helped incorporate perspectives

that should have always been included.

I arrived at the Smithsonian
through a Latino curatorial initiative

whose hiring of Latinx curators,

mostly women, by the way,

has raised the profile for Latinx
narratives across our institution.

And it served as a model

for our much larger Smithsonian
American Women's History Initiative,

which seeks to amplify diverse
representations of women

in every possible way,

so that women show up,

not only in the imagery
of our contemporary realities,

but in our historical representations,

because we've always been here.

Right now though, in 2018,
I can still walk into professional spaces

and be the only --

the only person under 40,
the only black person,

the only black woman, the only Latina,

sometimes, the only woman.

My mother is African-American
and my father is Afro-Panamanian.

I am so proudly and inextricably both.

As an Afro-Latina, I'm one of millions.

As an Afro-Latina curator,
I'm one of very few.

And bringing my whole self
into the professional realm

can feel like an act of bravery,

and I'll admit to you that I was
not always up for that challenge,

whether from fear of rejection
or self-preservation.

In meetings, I would only speak up

when I had a fully developed
comment to share.

No audible brainstorming
or riffing off of colleagues.

For a long time,

I denied myself the joy of wearing
my beloved hoop earrings

or nameplate necklace to work,

thinking that they were too loud
or unscholarly or unprofessional.

(Laughter)

I wondered how people
would react to my natural hair,

or if they viewed me as more acceptable
or less authentic when I straightened it.

And anyone who has felt outside
of mainstream representations

understands that there are basic elements
just of our everyday being

that can make other people uncomfortable.

But because I am passionate

about the everyday representation
of women as we are,

I stopped presenting an inauthentic
representation of myself or my work.

And I have been tested.

This is me pointing
at my hoop earring in my office --

(Laughter)

Just last month, I was invited to keynote
a Latino Heritage Month event.

The week of the presentation,
the organization expressed concerns.

They called my slides "activist,"

and they meant that negatively.

(Laughter)

(Applause)

Two days before the presentation,

they requested that I not show
a two-minute video affirming natural hair,

because "it may create a barrier
to the learning process

for some of the participants."

(Laughter)

That poem, "Hair," was written
and performed by Elizabeth Acevedo,

a Dominican-American
2018 National Book Award winner,

and it appeared in an award-winning
Smithsonian exhibit that I curated.

I canceled the talk,

explaining to them that their censorship
of me and my work made me uncomfortable.

(Applause and cheers)

Respectability politics
and idealized femininity

influence how we display women

and which women we choose to display.

And that display has skewed
toward successful and extraordinary

and reputable and desirable,

which maintains the systemic exclusion

and marginalization of the everyday,
the regular, the underrepresented

and usually, the nonwhite.

As a museum curator, I am empowered
to change that narrative.

I research, collect and interpret
objects and images of significance.

Celia Cruz, the queen of Salsa --

(Cheers)

yes -- is significant.

And an Afro-Latina.

The Smithsonian has collected
her costumes, her shoes,

her portrait, her postage stamp

and this reimagining ...

by artist Tony Peralta.

When I collected and displayed this work,

it was a victory
for symbolic contradictions.

Pride in displaying a dark-skinned Latina,

a black woman,

whose hair is in large rollers
which straighten your hair,

perhaps a nod to white beauty standards.

A refined, glamorous woman
in oversized, chunky gold jewelry.

When this work was on view,

it was one of our most
Instagrammed pieces,

and visitors told me they connected
with the everyday elements

of her brown skin or her rollers
or her jewelry.

Our collections include Celia Cruz

and a rare portrait
of a young Harriet Tubman ...

iconic clothing from
the incomparable Oprah Winfrey.

But museums can literally change

how hundreds of millions
of people see women

and which women they see.

So rather than always
the first or the famous,

it's also our responsibility to show
a regular Saturday at the beauty salon,

the art of door-knocker earrings ...

(Laughter)

fashionable sisterhood ...

(Laughter)

and cultural pride at all ages.

Stories of everyday women

whose stories have been knowingly omitted
from our national and global histories.

And oftentimes in museums,
you see women represented by clothing

or portraits or photography ...

but impactful, life-changing stories
from everyday women

can also look like
this Esmeraldan boat seat.

Esmeraldas, Ecuador
was a maroon community.

Its dense rainforest protected
indigenous and African populations

from Spanish colonizers.

There are roads now,

but there are some parts inland
that are still only accessible by canoe.

Débora Nazareno frequently traveled
those Ecuadorian waterways by canoe,

so she had her own boat seat.

Hers personalized
with a spiderweb and a spider,

representing Anansi,
a character in West African folklore.

Débora also sat on this seat at home,
telling stories to her grandson, Juan.

And this intangible ritual of love

in the form of
intergenerational storytelling

is common in communities
across the African diaspora.

And this everyday act sparked in Juan
the desire to collect and preserve

over 50,000 documents related
to Afro-Indian culture.

In 2005, Juan García Salazar,
Débora's grandson,

and by now a world-renowned
Afro-Ecuadorian scholar,

traveled to Washington, D.C.

He met with Lonnie Bunch,
the director of the museum where I work,

and toward the end of their conversation,

Juan reached into his bag and said,
"I'd like to give you a present."

On that day, Débora Nazareno's
humble wooden boat seat

became the very first object donated

to the Smithsonian National Museum
of African-American History and Culture.

It is encased, displayed and has been seen
by almost five million visitors

from all over the world.

I will continue to collect
from extraordinary historymakers.

Their stories are important.

But what drives me to show up
today and every day

is the simple passion to write
our names in history,

display them publicly for millions to see

and walk in the ever-present
light that is woman.

Thank you.

(Applause and cheers)