On Tuesday, Sept. 10, the Colgate University Longyear Museum of Anthropology hosted a reception for the opening of its newest exhibition “Entangled Intimacies: Tradition, Motion, and Memory,” the first in Longyear’s newly renovated gallery space. Partnering with the Africana and Latin American Studies Program (ALST) and the African Students’ Union, the Black Student Union, the Caribbean Students Association and the Latin American Student Organization, University Museums promoted community engagement with the history preserved in the Longyear collection by means of an indoor block party with decorations, music and catered cuisine.
Longyear debuted the summer renovations at the opening reception for “Entangled Intimacies.” The exhibition takes its name from the introductory class to the Africana and Latin American Studies Program (ALST 199). Highlighting themes such as diasporas, migrations and the defense of tradition and identity, the exhibition shares the course’s focus on the connections, geographical and otherwise, between post-colonial communities across the globe. In addition, the new exhibition will seek to incorporate perspectives from the Colgate community into the exhibition itself by encouraging student, faculty and staff submissions to use as labels for the displays in the gallery.
In the opening remarks of the reception, Museum Curator Rebecca Mendelsohn explained the intent of this new policy and asked for the audience’s engagement.
“Help us tell the story by submitting a label to the exhibition and sharing your own perspective,” Mendelsohn said. “Our hope is to tell a more complete and collaborative narrative [of] Entangled Intimacies.”
In addition to seeking individual contributions, the exhibition and its reception bring together different Colgate communities, laying the groundwork for future collaborations and establishing a shared space. Curatorial Assistant Summer Frazier, who co-curated the exhibition, discussed her excitement and gratitude for the opportunity to increase collaboration between Longyear and the rest of the university.
“I’m glad [the ALST professors] were willing to help us and give us all the information we needed to go forward with the project,” Frazier said. “I look forward to more collaborations with the Colgate community.”
Senior and Co-President of Colgate’s Caribbean Students Association (CSA) Rahneke Worrell likewise highlighted the community and collaboration-oriented nature of the reception party.
“My goal was to bring everybody together […] to show everybody the culture in the things that surround us,” Worrell said. “Our events are open to everybody, they’re not exclusive to any cultural group, so please come and learn about the culture, please come explore.”
Other students who helped organize the event or who simply attended the reception cited similar themes of community and encouraged those who were not present to join in. Senior and President of the Black Student Union Abygail Metellus cited the importance of the exhibit in posing deep questions such as “What is blackness?” as well as in adding a personal and emotional aspect to the history and concepts learned in classes.
“If you’re a Colgate student, you need to come to the Longyear Museum and come see the exhibit,” Metellus said. “To see [art] that is so beautiful […] — that’s a great way to motivate the community to come out and truly be in spaces that they’ve never been in before or really experience things that they’ve never experienced.”
Senior Paul Schulze expressed similar sentiments to Metellus and hopes that “Entangled Intimacies” can offer Colgate students the opportunity to learn about the often understudied history on display in more depth.
“The only thing I wish is that there were more plaques about these things and their importance,” Schulze said. “I’m pretty ignorant of a lot of these things […] — I don’t know what any of this would have meant in the cultural context in which it was created.”
The opportunity for the public to submit labels to the exhibition itself may provide an answer to Schulze’s hopes and enable visitors to both learn history and connect it to their identities and their place in the world. Even if some questions will undoubtedly be left unanswered, “Entangled Intimacies” offers a space on campus for the community to share new ideas and reflections.
“Entangled Intimacies: Tradition, Motion, and Memory” will be on display on the second floor of Alumni Hall for the duration of this fall 2024 semester.
