As a teaching museum, the Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College strives to cultivate rigorous collaboration with the College community.
“Black Ecologies in Contemporary American Art,” which opened last month and shows through June at the Benton, is the unique product of interdisciplinary collaboration at Pomona.
The show, which explores relationships among Black people, land and the environment, was curated by two faculty members—J Finley, associate professor of Africana studies, and Cherene Sherrard-Johnson, E. Wilson Lyon Professor of the Humanities and chair of English—with contributions from students in their respective classes.
Victoria Sancho Lobis, Sarah Rempel and Herbert S. Rempel ’23 Director of the Benton Museum of Art and associate professor of art history, was the third curator and visionary behind the exhibition.
As long-time collaborators with the Benton, Finley and Sherrard-Johnson often bring their classes for showings curated specifically for them. Sancho Lobis had the idea in fall 2023 to create this latest exhibition, inspired by a course Sherrard-Johnson was teaching titled Black Ecologies.
“Ecologies is very much about the body within the environment and the kind of porous boundaries between the two,” says Sherrard-Johnson, “and how the social and political, as well as climate change, impact the health and flourishing of bodies in those spaces.”
This past fall, Finley’s class—Unruly Bodies: Black Womanhood in Popular Culture—explored images of Black women across popular culture, while Sherrard-Johnson’s course—Race, Gender, and the Environment (co-taught with Aimee Bahng, associate professor of gender and women’s studies)—took an intersectional approach to environmental studies.
Students from both classes visited the vaults at the Benton to help select works for the exhibition. What they chose spanned a range of mediums, including photographs, paintings and sculptures.
Reflecting on the experience, Amirah Lockett ’28 says, “I was able to combine my love for art with what I learned from the course and the artworks themselves: appreciating the artists’ different experiences and how they represent those experiences through their work.” Simran Smith ’25 adds, “Being a student contributor allowed me to become intimately attached to this incredibly important and historic exhibition.”
In addition to being part of the curatorial process, the students created most of the object labels—texts that provide information about the objects on display. Both Finley and Sherrard-Johnson assigned label writing assignments in their classes, and Finley also brought in Brittany Webb, Evelyn and Will Kaplan Curator of Twentieth-Century Art and the John Rhoden Collection at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, to teach a workshop on label writing.
“We really wanted them to use their own knowledge from the classes and their personal responses to the works” to write the object labels, says Sherrard-Johnson.
“My main objective was to create a narrative that I felt truly conveyed the history, emotions and culture of the Black experience,” says Taylor Parks ’27. Isaiah Dawson ’26 adds, “Co-writing a label for one of the pieces in the exhibit deepened my engagement with the historical themes of the artworks.”
After months of preparation, Sherrard-Johnson says she was “very emotional” seeing the show for the first time. “It’s beautiful,” she says.
Finley was also appreciative of the opportunity to curate an exhibit with her students.
“One thing I really like to do in my classes is have a creative component,” says Finley. “But I had never done something like involving them in the creation of an exhibition. I always tell the class, ‘We’re not just consuming the knowledge.’ This was an opportunity for us to put that into action.”
‘Black Ecologies in Contemporary American Art’ is on view at the Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College from February 13 to June 29.