Natural disasters happen, and with them, the human struggle to process the destruction, not just in the moment, but also years later. How we remember or frame such events – what stories we tell ourselves about them – shapes our ability to grapple with large-scale loss. Carrie Cushman, Edith Dale Monson Curator at the Hartford Art School, takes up the question of how artists – including photographers, architects, and curators – help us memorialize disasters. Her case study: modern day Japan. In the wake of important anniversaries marking the 1995 Kobe Earthquake and the 2011 Great Tōhoku Earthquake and Tsunami, she’ll discuss how Japanese artists have shifted their artistic approaches to memorializing disaster. The most seismically active country on earth, the Japanese landscape is a crucial barometer for understanding methods for representing disaster in an increasingly fragile world.
Carrie Cushman (PhD in Art History, Columbia) is the Edith Dale Monson Gallery Director and Curator at the Hartford Art School and a specialist in postwar and contemporary art and photography from Japan. Prior to joining the University of Hartford, Carrie worked as a curator at the Davis Museum at Wellesley College. Her recent publications include Komatsu Hiroko: Creative Destruction (2022) and Going Viral: Photography, Performance, and the Everyday (2020). She is also the co-creator of the educational website, Behind the Camera: Gender, Power, and Politics in the History of Japanese Photography.
Friday, March 21 | 2 p.m.–3:30 p.m. | The McAuley (off campus/West Hartford) | $20
This course is made possible in part by the generosity of the Richard P. Garmany Fund at the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving.
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