“Breonna Taylor Could Have Been Me”: Bearing Witness to Faith in Black (Feminist) Futurity at the Speed Art Museum’s Promise, Witness, Remembrance Exhibit

Michael Brandon Mccormack

doi:10.3390/rel12110980

Abstract

This article explores the Speed Art Museum’s exhibit, Promise, Witness, Remembrance, as a site of meaning-making in the wake of the state-sponsored killing of Breonna Taylor. The article focuses on how the curators engaged the felt sense of vulnerability to premature death among Black viewers identified with Taylor in ways that held in tension a crisis of faith in, and an insistence upon, Black futurity.

Highlights

This article continues a trajectory of research explored in a series of articles wherein I describe and analyze how museums, cultural centers, and art spaces curate Black/Africana religion/spirituality and culture in ways that foster public discourse on “race”and “religion”, and other intersecting subject positions (McCormack 2017, 2019, 2020)
In light of the questions raised in “Faith & Justice in Promise, Witness, Remembrance”, I attempt to show how Glenn and her team’s curatorial practices work to establish a Black feminist ethos of care for Black life and work to foster a deep sense of “aspiration” or “faith” in Black futurity, in the face of the anti-Black violence that led to the premature death of Breonna Taylor and countless others
Throughout the article, I attend to resonances and dissonances of the Speed Art Museum’s curation of, and community engagement programming surrounding, the Promise, Witness, Remembrance exhibit among local activists and community members engaged in protests for justice for Breonna Taylor, as well as the ongoing

Summary

Introduction

This article continues a trajectory of research explored in a series of articles wherein I describe and analyze how museums, cultural centers, and art spaces curate Black/Africana religion/spirituality and culture in ways that foster public discourse (and action) on “race”. & Justice in Promise, Witness, Remembrance”, I attempt to show how Glenn and her team’s curatorial practices work to establish a Black feminist ethos of care for Black life and work to foster a deep sense of “aspiration” or “faith” in Black futurity, in the face of the anti-Black violence that led to the premature death of Breonna Taylor and countless others. Such a Black (feminist) futurity, is held in tension with a profound crisis/loss/lack of faith, among many community members, in the possibilities of a future marked by freedom from injustice, white supremacy, and anti-blackness Along these lines, throughout the article, I attend to resonances and dissonances of the Speed Art Museum’s curation of, and community engagement programming surrounding, the Promise, Witness, Remembrance exhibit among local activists and community members engaged in protests for justice for Breonna Taylor, as well as the ongoing. This article explores, describes, and analyzes how the Speed Museum attempted to promote public discourse (and action)—through curation and community engagement—around questions of faith and futurity in the wake of the persistence of premature Black death, as exemplified in the state-sponsored killing of Breonna Taylor

Honoring Breonna Taylor’s Life and Memory

It Could Have Been Me

There Are Black People in the Future

A Spiritual Commitment

Conclusions