Opening Reception, 'Call and Response: A Narrative of Reverence to Our Foremothers in Gynecology'

In conjunction with this event, the Cooper Gallery will be open until 8:30pm

Featuring the art of Jules Arthur, Michelle Browder, Michelle Hartney, Jeremy Daniel, Vinnie Bagwell, King Cobra, Anyika McMillan-Herod, Malcolm Herod, Charly Evon Simpson, Tsedaye Makonnen, Sarah Krulwich, Howard Simmons and Spencer PlattCo-sponsored with the Resilient Sisterhood Project and curated by Dell Marie Hamilton

In 2019, the Resilient Sisterhood Project, (RSP), a non-profit healthcare advocacy organization that supports Black communities, took a leading role in illuminating and raising public awareness about the notorious medical experiments of Dr. James Marion Sims, and the surgeries he conducted on enslaved Black women in the mid-19^th century. Guided by the Sankofa principle of looking to the past to understand the present, RSP commissioned artist Jules Arthur to create a suite of paintings to center the identities of three of the women Sims named in his writings. They were known as Lucy, Betsey and Anarcha.

In an effort to extend the conversation, this exhibition includes Arthur’s paintings as well as the work of Vinnie Bagwell, Michelle Browder, Jeremy Daniel, Michelle Hartney, King Cobra (documented as Doreen Lynette Garner), Sara Krulwich, Anyika McMillan-Herod, Malcolm Herod, Tsedaye Makonnen, and Charly Evon Simpson. These artists have sought to reclaim the memory of these courageous women with humanity and compassion. The photographs of Howard Simmons and Spencer Platt have documented the work of steadfast organizers who lobbied and pushed the City of New York to remove Sims’s monument at the corner of Central Park and East 103^rd Street in 2018.

Whether it’s the astronomical rates of Black maternal mortality, sterilization efforts that targeted Mexican and Puerto Rican women in the 20^th century, or the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and the push to block gender-affirming care for trans youth, this collaboration between RSP and the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, asks audiences to reflect on how the roots of this history and its attending racial, gender, ethnic and class biases are baked into the woeful state of contemporary healthcare practice.

 

Further Reading   Books   Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology by Deirdre Cooper Owens, University of Georgia Press, 2018   Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet A. Washington, Anchor, 2008   Say Anarcha: A Young Woman, A Devious Surgeon, and the Harrowing Birth of Modern Women’s Health by J.C. Hallman, Henry Holt, 2023. Visit the illustrated online archive at https://www.youtube.com/@AnarchaArchive.   The Pain Gap, How Sexism and Racism, in Healthcare Kill Women by Anushay Hossain, S&S/Simon Element, 2021   Henrietta Lacks, The Untold Story, by Ron Lacks, Bookbaby, 2020   The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot, Crown, 2011   Examining Tuskegee: The Infamous Syphilis Study and Its Legacy by Susan Reverby, University of North Carolina Press, 2009   Documentary Films   Remembering Anarcha directed by Josh Carples, 2021 https://rememberinganarcha.com   Aftershock directed by Paula Eiselt and Tonya Lewis Lee, 2022 https://www.aftershockdocumentary.com     News Articles   Why Are Women’s Health Concerns Dismissed So Often? 1A hosted by Jenn While, NPR, January 4, 2023 https://the1a.org/segments/why-are-womens-health-concerns-dismissed-so-often/   Cervical Cancer Kills Black Women at a Disproportionately Higher Rate Than White Women by Alana White, NPR, January 31, 2022 https://www.npr.org/2022/01/31/1076202786/cervical-cancer-kills-black-women-at-a-disproportionately-higher-rate-than-white   Labor Pains: The Pain That Is Unlike All Other Pain by Stephanie H. Murray, The Atlantic, August 12, 2022 https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2022/08/childbirth-pain-epidural-trade-offs/671113/