Weekender Feature | Yucuaiquin and Sudanese Art
Two communities on different continents speak the same language in Tufts' Slater Concourse Gallery
Chloe Zimmerman
Issue date: 3/15/07 Section: Weekend
As civil war wrenches a country apart, forced migration is often inevitable. While migration may thwart immediate danger, the enduring consequences of leaving one's homeland are extensive. This month in the Slater Concourse Gallery at Tufts, two anthropology-based exhibits aim to bridge the chasm between traditional culture and new life, invoking memory while simultaneously looking towards the future.
The two exhibits are on display until March 30, "From Yucuaiquin to Somerville: El Baile de los Negritos" and "Leave the Bones and Catch the Land: South Sudanese Art from Kakuma Refugee Camp," and were installed as part of the Greater Boston Anthropology Consortium Student Conference held in Aidekman last Friday. Each exhibit is the culmination of an anthropology class at an affiliated university. While the exhibits are both smaller excerpts from earlier exhibitions, their location parallel to each other in the Slater Gallery provides for a unique and interactive joint show.
From El Salvador to Somerville
"From Yucuaiquin to Somerville: El Baile de los Negritos" has its roots here at Tufts. Senior Sebastian Chaskel developed the exhibit as an offshoot of Urban Borderlands, an anthropology class focused on Somerville's Latino community. The exhibit traces a customary religious dance from its home in Yucuaiquin, El Salvador to the community of Yucuaiquin immigrants in Somerville, many of whom migrated here during the repression and ensuing civil war of the 1980s. "Their dance allows them to connect with their traditions," Chaskel said, "while helping them build community in their new home, the U.S."
"Leave the Bones and Catch the Land: South Sudanese Art from Kakuma Refugee Camp" hails from the Brandeis University class "Museums and Public Memory," taught by Dr. Mark Auslander. Auslander's course emphasizes student-community interaction to create a collaborative community-based exhibition.
This year, Auslander's students curated an exhibit of paintings created by displaced Southern Sudanese at a refugee camp in Kenya. Auslander said that he and his students sought "to develop an exhibition that really reflected the interests of the refugee community."
The two exhibits are on display until March 30, "From Yucuaiquin to Somerville: El Baile de los Negritos" and "Leave the Bones and Catch the Land: South Sudanese Art from Kakuma Refugee Camp," and were installed as part of the Greater Boston Anthropology Consortium Student Conference held in Aidekman last Friday. Each exhibit is the culmination of an anthropology class at an affiliated university. While the exhibits are both smaller excerpts from earlier exhibitions, their location parallel to each other in the Slater Gallery provides for a unique and interactive joint show.
From El Salvador to Somerville
"From Yucuaiquin to Somerville: El Baile de los Negritos" has its roots here at Tufts. Senior Sebastian Chaskel developed the exhibit as an offshoot of Urban Borderlands, an anthropology class focused on Somerville's Latino community. The exhibit traces a customary religious dance from its home in Yucuaiquin, El Salvador to the community of Yucuaiquin immigrants in Somerville, many of whom migrated here during the repression and ensuing civil war of the 1980s. "Their dance allows them to connect with their traditions," Chaskel said, "while helping them build community in their new home, the U.S."
"Leave the Bones and Catch the Land: South Sudanese Art from Kakuma Refugee Camp" hails from the Brandeis University class "Museums and Public Memory," taught by Dr. Mark Auslander. Auslander's course emphasizes student-community interaction to create a collaborative community-based exhibition.
This year, Auslander's students curated an exhibit of paintings created by displaced Southern Sudanese at a refugee camp in Kenya. Auslander said that he and his students sought "to develop an exhibition that really reflected the interests of the refugee community."
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Mark Auslander
posted 3/16/07 @ 5:16 AM EST
This is a wonderful article. I am very sorry, however . to see that our principal community partner, the Sudanese Education Fund (SEF) is not mentioned. (Continued…)
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