COLLECTIVE MEMORY: STORYTELLING AND COLLABORATION IN THE WRITING OF HISTORY

What role does memory play in recording and reflecting upon history? How can recording practices illuminate shifts around our expectation of truth, help to dismantle accepted and exclusionary histories, and serve as public advocacy? We explore these questions in light of the exhibition Willi Smith: Street Couture, for which recollection and storytelling were integral to the shaping of the exhibition. The conversation is moderated by Eric Darnell Pritchard, author and Associate Professor of English at the University at Buffalo, with panelists including Steven G. Fullwood, Archivist and Co-founder of the Nomadic Archivists Project, Uzodinma Iweala, author and CEO of the Africa Center, and Kelly Elaine Navies, Museum Specialist in Oral History for the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). -------