Social progress in the age of anti-diversity lawsuits
The rise in anti-diversity, equity and inclusion lawsuits is forcing cultural organisations to tread an increasingly fine line when addressing history, says Julia Halperin, as she visits a sculpture park in Alabama.
This spring, I visited a sculpture park unlike any I have ever experienced. The Freedom Monument Sculpture Park in Montgomery, Alabama, which opened to the public on 27 March, is more than a collection of works by artists including Rashid Johnson, Kehinde Wiley, Alison Saar and Simone Leigh.
It is a 17-acre site with an ambitious aim: to honour the lives of the 10 million Black people who were enslaved in the US through art, first-person narratives, artefacts, historical research and monuments. In the process, it seeks to change the way Americans think about their history at a moment when powerful, deep-pocketed figures in government, higher education and the corporate world are uniting behind the scenes to keep that very thing from happening.
Does that sound dramatic? It is not. Just one week after my visit, the governor of Alabama signed a law banning state funding of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes in schools and state agencies... Keep reading on The Art Newspaper.
This spring, I visited a sculpture park unlike any I have ever experienced. The Freedom Monument Sculpture Park in Montgomery, Alabama, which opened to the public on 27 March, is more than a collection of works by artists including Rashid Johnson, Kehinde Wiley, Alison Saar and Simone Leigh.
It is a 17-acre site with an ambitious aim: to honour the lives of the 10 million Black people who were enslaved in the US through art, first-person narratives, artefacts, historical research and monuments. In the process, it seeks to change the way Americans think about their history at a moment when powerful, deep-pocketed figures in government, higher education and the corporate world are uniting behind the scenes to keep that very thing from happening.
Does that sound dramatic? It is not. Just one week after my visit, the governor of Alabama signed a law banning state funding of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes in schools and state agencies... Keep reading on The Art Newspaper.