20th-Century Memory Work

The arguments over what its opponents call “Critical Race Theory” in classrooms, over banning books about race, over statues of Confederate generals – these are all arguments about historical memory. What parts of our history are we willing to remember, and what happens when we choose to forget other aspects? The work of remembering is ongoing, and for those of us who don’t live in former Confederate states, it can be easy to think it’s just down there that people have to think about the Civil War or Jim Crow. Here in Indiana, there were plenty of lynchings. What do we do with that memory? How do we remind ourselves that the past is still with us, that the questions of the past are still unanswered? This week, two stories about how art can keep those conversations going. First, photographer Kei Ito uses his breath to think about nuclear war. Then, an exhibition in Indiana looks back at two competing anti-lynching exhibits from the 1930s, and remembering lynchings here in Indiana.