WEBVTT 00:00:09.797 --> 00:00:11.800 Carrie Mae Weems: You know, it's like– I open up this box; 00:00:11.800 --> 00:00:13.480 it’s like opening up a can of worms. 00:00:13.480 --> 00:00:14.258 You know what I mean? 00:00:14.258 --> 00:00:18.446 It’s just like the most amazing– it was the most amazing project. 00:00:19.280 --> 00:00:20.920 There were a group of photographs 00:00:20.920 --> 00:00:23.040 that I knew that I absolutely had to use. 00:00:23.040 --> 00:00:26.720 I had been thinking about them for years and years and years. 00:00:26.720 --> 00:00:29.560 I had lectured on them in any number of contexts 00:00:29.560 --> 00:00:32.386 in my classrooms for a really long time. 00:00:33.220 --> 00:00:34.280 And there were a group of them that 00:00:34.280 --> 00:00:36.720 came out of the Harvard archives. 00:00:36.720 --> 00:00:39.840 This was one of them, a very early daguerreotype 00:00:39.840 --> 00:00:42.680 that had been done in North Carolina, 00:00:42.680 --> 00:00:46.000 South Carolina, of a family of slaves. 00:00:46.000 --> 00:00:49.120 But it was the kind of project that allowed me to think again 00:00:49.120 --> 00:00:54.040 about the history of black subjects in photography as well, 00:00:54.040 --> 00:00:57.320 how the black body had been used photographically. 00:00:57.320 --> 00:01:01.815 The final pieces are with texts, and the text is etched into glass. 00:01:02.120 --> 00:01:05.080 They look very different once they're behind glass 00:01:05.080 --> 00:01:08.680 because the glass and the text becomes really, really important 00:01:08.680 --> 00:01:13.493 to how the audience is being asked to engage with the photographs. 00:01:15.120 --> 00:01:17.360 And so there were these beginning images that seemed 00:01:17.360 --> 00:01:22.680 to me to really crystallize and compress in four images 00:01:22.680 --> 00:01:26.995 the history of African-Americans in the history of photography. 00:01:28.480 --> 00:01:32.050 There are 30 photographs within the series. 00:01:33.840 --> 00:01:37.280 All of the photographs for the Getty series are– 00:01:38.200 --> 00:01:43.160 are appropriated images from other historical sources. 00:01:43.160 --> 00:01:46.560 Harvard threatened to sue me for the use of the first photographs 00:01:46.560 --> 00:01:48.000 that I showed you. 00:01:48.840 --> 00:01:52.200 So I thought, Harvard is going to sue me 00:01:52.200 --> 00:01:57.640 for using these images of black people in their collection, 00:01:57.640 --> 00:02:00.540 the richest university in the world. 00:02:01.734 --> 00:02:04.000 I think that I don't have really a legal case, 00:02:04.000 --> 00:02:07.440 but maybe I have a moral case that could be made 00:02:07.440 --> 00:02:12.080 that might be really useful to carry out in public. 00:02:12.080 --> 00:02:16.840 And so after worrying about it and thinking about it, 00:02:16.840 --> 00:02:18.000 I called them up, and I said, 00:02:18.000 --> 00:02:20.907 "I think actually your suing me would be a really good thing. 00:02:21.721 --> 00:02:25.360 You should, and we should have this conversation in court. 00:02:25.360 --> 00:02:27.920 I think it would be really instructive for 00:02:27.920 --> 00:02:31.120 any number of reasons and certainly for artists 00:02:31.120 --> 00:02:33.920 that are really engaged in the act of appropriation 00:02:33.920 --> 00:02:36.772 who think that there is a larger story to tell." 00:02:37.280 --> 00:02:42.321 Harvard then finally thought, "No, I guess we won't sue her.” 00:02:43.480 --> 00:02:46.440 And then they asked me to, every time a sell was made, 00:02:46.440 --> 00:02:49.327 that I would have to pay them for the use of the photographs. 00:02:51.280 --> 00:02:55.061 And then they bought the photographs for their collection. 00:03:00.360 --> 00:03:02.200 So it was like, "Okay, well, you bought 'em. 00:03:02.200 --> 00:03:04.720 Do I have to pay you? Do I have to pay you too?" 00:03:04.720 --> 00:03:07.463 I mean– I mean, I’m a little confused. 00:03:14.480 --> 00:03:19.240 I come from this big, wonderful, crazy family of, 00:03:19.240 --> 00:03:21.600 I don't know, 300 or so of us. 00:03:21.600 --> 00:03:25.680 So I started thinking about this relationship of me to my family 00:03:25.680 --> 00:03:27.719 and how to sort of tease that out. 00:03:28.838 --> 00:03:30.880 It was important for me because I really needed 00:03:30.880 --> 00:03:32.920 to understand something about the nature of 00:03:32.920 --> 00:03:35.320 my own being and my own voice and 00:03:35.320 --> 00:03:37.018 really where I come from. 00:03:38.360 --> 00:03:41.520 My father was a really great, great, great storyteller, and, 00:03:41.520 --> 00:03:44.203 you know, narrative and storytelling was in the blood. 00:03:45.240 --> 00:03:48.120 I just came from a family reunion. 00:03:48.120 --> 00:03:53.200 My aunt Nellie, who's sort of the chronicler of our family, 00:03:53.200 --> 00:03:55.960 put together this really beautiful scrapbook. 00:03:55.960 --> 00:03:57.200 And I love this photograph. 00:03:57.200 --> 00:03:58.533 I grew up with this picture. 00:03:59.143 --> 00:04:02.708 This is sort of like the anchor, the bedrock of my family. 00:04:03.318 --> 00:04:07.040 This is my beautiful mother and all of her sisters, 00:04:07.040 --> 00:04:09.018 and I’m crazy about them all. 00:04:11.520 --> 00:04:14.600 This is a photograph of my grandfather. 00:04:14.600 --> 00:04:17.360 My grandfather was Jewish and Native American, 00:04:17.360 --> 00:04:19.960 and he married my grandmother who was this– 00:04:19.960 --> 00:04:24.103 you know, this black woman, and they had 11 children together. 00:04:25.140 --> 00:04:27.320 Papa was this sort of amazing guy, 00:04:27.320 --> 00:04:30.560 who, because he basically passed for white, 00:04:30.560 --> 00:04:34.760 was able to employ his entire family in Portland, Oregon. 00:04:34.760 --> 00:04:38.680 And there were times when he would take Osie, my grandmother, 00:04:38.680 --> 00:04:42.280 with him for a job, and they would fire him 00:04:42.280 --> 00:04:45.320 because they realized that he was married to a black woman. 00:04:45.320 --> 00:04:50.120 Or sometimes when my grandfather had all of the kids in the car, 00:04:50.120 --> 00:04:52.160 white people would pass by and say, 00:04:52.160 --> 00:04:54.186 "What are you doing with all them niggers in your car?" 00:04:55.040 --> 00:04:57.080 They were just sort of extraordinary people, 00:04:57.080 --> 00:05:00.067 and what they put in motion is still there. 00:05:00.240 --> 00:05:04.774 And my mother and her sisters have carried on that amazing tradition. 00:05:06.320 --> 00:05:08.891 I moved away from home when I was 16. 00:05:09.440 --> 00:05:11.160 I went to my father and said, 00:05:11.160 --> 00:05:13.857 "Dad, I think I’m ready to move out on my own.” 00:05:14.040 --> 00:05:16.960 He said, "you think that you could, like, move out and pay your rent 00:05:16.960 --> 00:05:19.840 and buy your food and all that by yourself 00:05:19.840 --> 00:05:23.320 and not come back home, like, every other day for food 00:05:23.320 --> 00:05:26.294 or rent or a safe haven?" 00:05:26.680 --> 00:05:28.765 and I said, "Yeah, I think I can do that." 00:05:29.680 --> 00:05:33.600 And he said, "Well, if you think you can do that, then go do that. 00:05:33.600 --> 00:05:36.040 If you think that you need to come back home after you've tried it, 00:05:36.040 --> 00:05:38.520 you are always, of course, welcome to come back home, 00:05:38.520 --> 00:05:41.520 but if you think you can take care of yourself, 00:05:41.520 --> 00:05:43.480 then go take care of yourself." 00:05:43.480 --> 00:05:46.332 And I left home, and I haven’t been back since. 00:05:49.139 --> 00:05:52.520 And so I went to San Francisco with my girlfriend. 00:05:52.520 --> 00:05:55.240 I had been interested in dance and theater to a certain extent. 00:05:55.240 --> 00:05:58.880 I mean, I just knew how to dance really well. 00:05:58.880 --> 00:06:02.967 And I started dancing with the famous and extraordinary Ann Halprin. 00:06:03.720 --> 00:06:07.760 Ann was already really interested in ideas about peace 00:06:07.760 --> 00:06:13.675 and using dance as a way to bridge different cultures together. 00:06:15.160 --> 00:06:18.400 I didn't know what one could really do with dance. 00:06:18.400 --> 00:06:21.760 I knew that it was really the visual arts that somehow 00:06:21.760 --> 00:06:23.835 would be more my calling. 00:06:24.120 --> 00:06:26.880 And then I had a boyfriend who was a photographer, 00:06:26.880 --> 00:06:30.600 and he would film all of our parties and happenings and rallies 00:06:30.600 --> 00:06:31.840 and demonstrations. 00:06:31.840 --> 00:06:35.120 We were all radicals, living in San Francisco. 00:06:35.120 --> 00:06:37.901 And he introduced me to photography. 00:06:45.960 --> 00:06:52.715 I was daydreaming about the Birmingham Riots in the 1960s. 00:06:54.281 --> 00:06:56.160 And the image started moving. 00:06:56.160 --> 00:06:59.680 I was thinking about one particular photograph made by Charles Moore, 00:06:59.680 --> 00:07:01.040 a photograph that I love, 00:07:01.040 --> 00:07:03.900 and Charles Moore didn’t really want me to use his photograph. 00:07:04.531 --> 00:07:05.320 And so I thought, 00:07:05.320 --> 00:07:08.892 "Okay, then I’m gonna bring that photograph to life. 00:07:09.360 --> 00:07:11.012 I’ll construct that moment." 00:07:11.520 --> 00:07:15.400 And so I went to Birmingham, and I pulled out some students, 00:07:15.400 --> 00:07:17.614 and we did a whole series of actions, 00:07:17.614 --> 00:07:22.880 and out of that came this idea to do an entire series of 00:07:22.880 --> 00:07:27.618 re-creations around the idea of 1968. 00:07:28.899 --> 00:07:32.160 I realized that we were at this incredible moment, 00:07:32.160 --> 00:07:34.120 that 40 years had elapsed, 00:07:34.120 --> 00:07:37.160 that Martin Luther King had died 40 years ago, 00:07:37.160 --> 00:07:39.800 and that it would be important to look at some things that happened 00:07:39.800 --> 00:07:42.120 just before that and just after that 00:07:42.120 --> 00:07:44.720 so that you would have to look at the assassination of Martin. 00:07:44.720 --> 00:07:47.200 You would have to look at the assassination of Malcolm. 00:07:47.200 --> 00:07:50.120 You would have to look at the assassination of Medgar Evers, 00:07:50.120 --> 00:07:52.385 of Robert F. Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, 00:07:53.280 --> 00:07:57.712 this idea of how then we arrived at this incredible moment. 00:07:58.200 --> 00:08:02.480 And then I realized that Barack Obama, of course, was running for 00:08:02.480 --> 00:08:04.640 the presidency of the United States. 00:08:04.640 --> 00:08:10.520 This incredible, tumultuous, brutal history is absolutely what 00:08:10.520 --> 00:08:14.960 makes him possible, that he could not be in that position 00:08:14.960 --> 00:08:18.160 without the death of all those people, 00:08:18.160 --> 00:08:21.600 and so that he is literally standing on the ashes 00:08:21.600 --> 00:08:26.720 and the spirit of all those things that have come before. 00:08:26.720 --> 00:08:29.480 And I just thought if I didn’t look at those things now, 00:08:29.480 --> 00:08:33.000 if I didn't look at all of that kind of trauma 00:08:33.000 --> 00:08:34.440 and the mourning, you know, 00:08:34.440 --> 00:08:40.640 and the sadness of the history of the last 40 years, then, 00:08:40.640 --> 00:08:43.496 you know, I really wasn't worth my salt. 00:08:44.920 --> 00:08:46.957 I don't know if this work will be important, 00:08:48.320 --> 00:08:50.240 but I know that it's important for me, 00:08:50.240 --> 00:08:52.720 that it was important for me to look at this history, 00:08:52.720 --> 00:08:57.720 to really think about where we are now, contemporarily. 00:08:57.720 --> 00:09:02.040 And it was important for me to consider deeply in my heart 00:09:02.040 --> 00:09:05.200 how we had arrived at this moment. 00:09:05.200 --> 00:09:09.000 And so then the idea that I would ask a number of students 00:09:09.000 --> 00:09:12.360 to assume the roles for themselves 00:09:12.360 --> 00:09:15.666 and thereby come to know something about that history– 00:09:16.480 --> 00:09:20.866 all those things were really very important for me to make. 00:09:21.944 --> 00:09:23.240 Student Gyun Hur: This is the assassination 00:09:23.240 --> 00:09:24.840 of Robert Kennedy. 00:09:24.840 --> 00:09:28.160 I think it's, I believe, like 1968. 00:09:28.160 --> 00:09:33.960 I acted in a part of being a busboy, and I think his name is Juan Romero. 00:09:33.960 --> 00:09:35.480 At that time, when he got shot, 00:09:35.480 --> 00:09:38.240 the busboy, who met him previously, 00:09:38.240 --> 00:09:41.000 he ran up to him and asked if he was okay 00:09:41.000 --> 00:09:45.212 and gave him a rosary, so that was the part that I reenacted. 00:09:45.720 --> 00:09:47.200 As an immigrant daughter, 00:09:47.200 --> 00:09:49.640 as somebody who never experienced it before– 00:09:49.640 --> 00:09:52.440 my parents don't know really much about this whole thing, 00:09:52.440 --> 00:09:55.880 and so for me to just come into that place of understanding 00:09:55.880 --> 00:09:59.080 what exactly happened, I think that was the hardest. 00:09:59.507 --> 00:10:00.440 Student Ashley Vieira: This is Kent State, 00:10:00.440 --> 00:10:02.520 and I’m the girl in the photograph. 00:10:02.520 --> 00:10:06.080 It was an extremely emotional situation. 00:10:06.080 --> 00:10:08.960 Carrie has this ability to evoke emotion in people, 00:10:08.960 --> 00:10:11.760 just from her voice, and it was so soothing. 00:10:11.760 --> 00:10:14.200 But when I got up there, at first I was really nervous, 00:10:14.200 --> 00:10:17.080 and I wasn't sure how I should become sad 00:10:17.080 --> 00:10:19.000 and become in that moment. 00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:23.200 And then once she started talking to me, just all these emotions fled, 00:10:23.200 --> 00:10:26.253 and I– and I cried really hard. 00:10:26.863 --> 00:10:28.080 Gallery Viewer 1: Veronica, the one with 00:10:28.080 --> 00:10:30.263 the Kent State, I remember that. 00:10:30.263 --> 00:10:30.743 Gallery viewer 2: Oh, do you? 00:10:30.743 --> 00:10:31.309 Gallery Viewer 1: You know– 00:10:31.309 --> 00:10:32.168 yeah, I remember that. 00:10:32.168 --> 00:10:35.720 I remember that actual photograph. 00:10:35.720 --> 00:10:38.320 I mean, I remember watching it on television, you know. 00:10:38.320 --> 00:10:40.160 Yeah, some of these are just– I mean, just– 00:10:40.160 --> 00:10:43.543 so these things have another kind of pitch to it, you know? 00:10:43.543 --> 00:10:44.160 Carrie Mae Weems: What came out of 00:10:44.160 --> 00:10:46.200 these photographs, which is, you know, 00:10:46.200 --> 00:10:47.600 what I really, really love, 00:10:47.600 --> 00:10:52.760 is indeed another way of working, this idea of constructing history. 00:10:52.760 --> 00:10:56.240 Not only did I want the students to be doing all the research and 00:10:56.240 --> 00:10:59.880 studying the reenactment: when did the students at Kent State die? 00:10:59.880 --> 00:11:01.280 Who was there? What was her name? 00:11:01.280 --> 00:11:02.880 Who were the other students that were killed? 00:11:02.880 --> 00:11:05.480 They had to do all that work, but then I thought, 00:11:05.480 --> 00:11:08.820 let’s construct them in a very sort of high, artificial way, 00:11:08.820 --> 00:11:12.480 and let’s put everybody on a podium, let’s put everything in there, 00:11:12.480 --> 00:11:14.840 and then let's show all the tracks. 00:11:14.840 --> 00:11:17.400 Let’s show all the lights. Let’s just show everything. 00:11:17.400 --> 00:11:21.401 Let’s just sort of show that all of the stuff is being constructed. 00:11:23.984 --> 00:11:26.040 Film voice over: In this constructed place, 00:11:26.040 --> 00:11:27.840 our classroom. 00:11:27.840 --> 00:11:29.774 We revisit the past. 00:11:30.080 --> 00:11:33.440 The students examine the facts and will participate 00:11:33.440 --> 00:11:35.880 in the construction of history, 00:11:35.880 --> 00:11:39.360 a history that has been told to them by others. 00:11:39.360 --> 00:11:44.600 But now, with their own bodies, they engage their own dark terrain, 00:11:44.600 --> 00:11:46.101 their own winter. 00:11:46.732 --> 00:11:48.560 Carrie Mae Weems: The video that goes along 00:11:48.560 --> 00:11:50.440 with these photographs begins 00:11:50.440 --> 00:11:53.574 and ends with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. 00:11:53.960 --> 00:11:58.400 So then I thought, "Oh...oh, oh, oh. 00:11:58.400 --> 00:12:03.400 Well– well, that's the other– that's part two, isn't it? 00:12:03.400 --> 00:12:04.320 That’s part two.” 00:12:04.320 --> 00:12:06.600 So that's what we're actually doing today. 00:12:06.600 --> 00:12:08.440 -Okay, ladies, let's go. 00:12:08.440 --> 00:12:12.240 Very much in sort of a similar style, John McCain, Barack Obama, 00:12:12.240 --> 00:12:14.000 Sarah Palin as a beauty queen. 00:12:16.680 --> 00:12:19.520 I’ve got all these little bombshells coming to sort of dress up 00:12:19.520 --> 00:12:22.480 in high heels and fishnets, and they'll all walk around. 00:12:22.480 --> 00:12:28.240 And now I think that Obama is indeed the president of the United States. 00:12:28.240 --> 00:12:32.811 For me, it gives the work just that much more credibility, 00:12:33.360 --> 00:12:38.320 right, you know, that it has actually a success at the end of it. 00:12:38.320 --> 00:12:40.440 -Each of you in turn, you’re going to, like, 00:12:40.440 --> 00:12:46.520 come walking towards the camera. Okay? 00:12:46.520 --> 00:12:48.200 That's one of the things that we’re going to do. 00:12:48.200 --> 00:12:50.160 So we have to set for that. 00:12:50.160 --> 00:12:52.640 You're going to start walking in this direction. 00:12:52.640 --> 00:12:53.440 We may have to-- 00:12:53.440 --> 00:12:56.160 The other day, I came home from Chicago, 00:12:56.160 --> 00:12:58.160 and I immediately plugged in my tape recorder, 00:12:58.160 --> 00:13:01.138 and I made a series of phone calls to a number of people, 00:13:02.480 --> 00:13:04.560 all kinds of people, that I’ve been in touch with 00:13:04.560 --> 00:13:07.720 over the last many, many years, to ask them about 00:13:07.720 --> 00:13:10.600 what they were thinking at that moment that it seemed 00:13:10.600 --> 00:13:13.883 that maybe Barack was actually going to be president. 00:13:16.120 --> 00:13:20.920 I spoke to people who, for the first time ever, said, 00:13:20.920 --> 00:13:24.306 "My country, my country, my country." 00:13:24.937 --> 00:13:26.117 Time... 00:13:27.520 --> 00:13:30.000 Because I think, really, it’s sort of, like, 00:13:30.000 --> 00:13:34.334 really claiming yourself, and it's a certain confidence. 00:13:34.840 --> 00:13:37.880 And you're all involved in theater, so you're all going to be working 00:13:37.880 --> 00:13:39.360 in front of other people. 00:13:39.360 --> 00:13:41.040 But I think it's even bigger. 00:13:41.040 --> 00:13:46.388 I think it's really about connecting with a story that is larger than you. 00:13:47.120 --> 00:13:50.844 It’s not about you. It’s not about you. 00:13:51.841 --> 00:13:56.160 We’re using these bodies to talk about something else 00:13:56.160 --> 00:13:58.880 that's much bigger than we are. Okay? 00:13:58.880 --> 00:14:03.480 And so find confidence in the historical story that we're gonna 00:14:03.480 --> 00:14:06.301 use your body to express this story through. 00:14:10.840 --> 00:14:14.400 In one moment, there was an enormous shift 00:14:14.400 --> 00:14:18.439 in the American imagination– in one moment. 00:14:19.578 --> 00:14:24.880 People who had never considered– African-Americans who had 00:14:24.880 --> 00:14:32.160 never considered this to be home, this to be a place that represented them, 00:14:32.160 --> 00:14:36.080 suddenly said, “my country" and "my president” and 00:14:36.080 --> 00:14:39.866 "my, my, my, my, ours."