Meet us at the museum for a conversation featuring artist and filmmaker Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich to celebrate the opening evening of her film installation, Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich: Too Bright to See (Part 1). Hunt-Ehrlich will be in conversation with Dr. Anny-Dominique Curtius, professor of Francophone studies at University of Iowa, author, and expert on the work and life of Suzanne Césaire.
Hunt-Ehrlich’s experimental narrative artwork Too Bright to See (Part 1) draws on her extensive research on the legacy of Suzanne Roussi-Césaire, a writer and anticolonial and feminist activist from Martinique who, along with her husband, Aimé Césaire, was at the forefront of the Négritude movement during the first half of the 20th century. Roussi-Césaire would also become an important Surrealist thinker, influencing the likes of painter Wifredo Lam and writer André Breton. However, despite her critical contributions to Caribbean thought and Surrealist discourse, until recently much of her work was overlooked. Hunt-Ehrlich and Dr. Curtius will uncover the findings of their extensive research of Suzanne Césaire and how it translates to this new experimental narrative artwork.
Immediately following the talk, mingle with friends on the terrace to the sounds of a Caribbean dancehall style set by DJ Pressure Point from 8–10pm.
About Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich
Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich is a filmmaker and artist who has completed projects in Kingston, Jamaica, Miami, Florida, and extensively in the five boroughs of New York City. Her work has been screened all over the world including at the 73rd Berlin International Film Festival, 2022 La Biennale di Venezia, the Guggenheim Museum and the Whitney Museum of Art in New York, and the Tate Modern in London. Her films have been awarded special jury prize for best experimental film at Blackstar Film Festival and New Orleans Film Festival. She was named on Filmmaker Magazine’s 2020 “25 New Faces of Independent Cinema List” and is the recipient of a 2022 Creative Capital Award, a 2020 San Francisco Film Society Rainin Grant, a 2019 Rema Hort Mann Award, and a 2014 Princess Grace Award in film.
About Anny-Dominique Curtius
Anny-Dominique Curtius is Professor of Francophone Studies at the University of Iowa. Her interdisciplinary research interweaves cultural theory, cinematic, visual, and performing arts of the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean, and Francophone Sub-Saharan Africa; post/de/colonial museum studies; Black Atlantic Ecocriticism. Her work also focuses on the defacement and toppling of the iconography of slavery in the public space.
She is the author of Suzanne Césaire. Archéologie littéraire et artistique d’une mémoire empêchée [Suzanne Césaire. Literary and Artistic Archeology of a Hindered Memory (2020), the first book that analyzes Suzanne Césaire’s seminal yet overlooked work. Her other publications includeSymbioses d’une mémoire: Manifestations religieuses et littératures de la Caraïbe [Symbiosis of a Memory: Caribbean Religions and Literatures] (2006)along with numerous articles and book chapters in journals and edited volumes. Her book in progress is titled Oceanic Anarchives: Remembering Slavery in Museums, Memorials and Performances.
