Drew Thompson
Associate Professor, Bard Graduate Center

Polaroid cameras—and their instant color developing technology—revolutionized photography the mid-20th century. However, little is known about the complex role that Polaroid films and cameras played in African and Black Diaspora histories. Join BGC associate professor Drew Thompson as he explores the Polaroid as an object of Black material culture. 

Drew Thompson is associate professor of Black studies and visual culture at Bard Graduate Center, where he researches and teaches in the areas of African and Black diaspora visual and material culture. Curating exhibitions is a fundamental part of his teaching and scholarship. He recently co-curated “Benjamin Wigfall & Communications Village,” the first posthumous survey of the Black American artist Benjamin Wigfall, which opened in September 2022 at the Dorsky Museum before traveling to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. He is also at work on an exhibition about African metalwork for the BGC Gallery, scheduled for fall 2023. He authored Filtering Histories: The Photographic Bureaucracy in Mozambique, 1960 to Recent Times (University of Michigan Press, 2021) and numerous publications about the history of photography and contemporary art in Southern Africa.

Tuesday, November 29, 12:15 pm
38 West 86th Street, Lecture Hall

Lunch will be served starting at noon. Registration required.