Label\Counter-Label:

Art & Archival Memory: An Art History Graduate Seminar organized in collaboration with the Library Company of Philadelphia

Artists, writers, and scholars are often called upon to reckon with history. At times, conventional tools do not suffice for seeing beyond the lapses, omissions, and deliberate exclusions that shape the long arc of public memory. This Tyler Art History graduate seminar partnered with the Visual Culture Program at the Library Company of Philadelphia to explore how archival research can provide inspiration for creative storytelling, or more specifically, history-telling in artistic and scholarly practice. Our group includes visual artists, writers, and scholars of art history, media and communication studies. All began by selecting one object from the Library Company’s unparalleled collection of 19th-century US visual and material culture. These artifacts then became starting points for experimental projects that use critical fabulation, personal memory, crowdsourcing, and creative thinking to craft imaginative but grounded historical narratives. Each exhibition begins with an exercise we call Label/Counter-Label, which pairs a conventionally formatted museum label with its unruly counterpart—a text that foregrounds curiosity, asks questions, and attempts to channel underrepresented histories and voices. 

Erin Pauwels, PhD
Assistant Professor of American Art, Tyler School of Art and Architecture