“The worst thing that colonialism did was to cloud our view of our past.”

-Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance

History can be hazy, a collection of stories that wobble along the line of truth and fiction. The facts are out there, but they often support a narrative quite different from the one we’ve been led to believe from a very young age. We are told of the heroic adventurers who sailed to distant shores and settled new worlds – who spun the societies in which we live today. Oft omitted are those whose shores these already were, those who were eradicated in the name of a crown or forward progress; their stories buried in the deep archives while a brighter version visits the textbooks and desktops of generations.

Dr. Christine Mullen Kreamer works as Deputy Director and Chief Curator at the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution. She spoke to us from Washington, D.C. where her role as curator sees her helping to oversee a large collection of global African art. The museum has a mission to bring about an understand of Africa as a global presence and a relevant entity in the present moment. She says that people shouldn’t think of Africa as a place that’s separate from the world, rather one that is an integral part of the global community. The museum was founded during the 1960s when African art wasn’t even on the radar, so to speak. Since its inception, the museum has brought together traditional and contemporary African art to give a cross cutting perspective and emphasize that some of the perceptions about Africa are culturally imposed by Westerners. Now, during this pandemic period, the museum is experiencing a shutdown. To hear more from Dr. Mullen Kreamer about the history, present and future of the National Museum of African Art, listen to the complete interview.

Mia Kang is a poet and student currently headed into her fourth year as a PhD candidate in the History of Art department at Yale University. Her studies involve the contested rise of U.S. multiculturalism and its failures. In addition to this general focus, she is interested in artists who have been “ghosted” by the art history cannon or the academic discipline of art history. To hear a more in-depth conversation about this concept, including some artists Kang researches who were unable to benefit from the legacy of their own work during their lifetimes – as well as a reading of her poetry – listen to the complete interview.