Researcher, historian, curator, tour guide and interim director of the Louisiana Museum of African American History, Monique Moss is spearheading the collaborative research project entitled Black Square Narratives 1823-2023: A Bicentennial Activation of St Louis Cemetery No. 2. It is a multi-year, interdisciplinary undertaking of organizations, scholars and artists to revitalize, preserve and advocate for the sacred space of the Black Square, one of three city blocks in the St Louis Cemetery No. 2 in New Orleans that was the final resting place of Black people who fought to defeat slavery and oppression during the Haitian Revolution, the period of chattel enslavement, the Civil War, Reconstruction and the Civil Rights Movement. Using a process of civic engagement known as Kongolese Mbongi Circles, Moss initiates gatherings of a coalition of partners (the New Orleans Black Square Network which includes artists) who present individually researched historical and biographical content directly related to Black Square.
Monique Moss
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“The terrific range of project proposals we receive each year speaks to the mobile and porous disciplinary boundaries of contemporary art practice, and to the rich and inventive ways writers approach art today. They are alert to the urgent need to expand the conventions of art history and criticism with ideas from other discourses, such as black studies, transnational and diaspora studies, gender and women’s studies, and LGBT studies. The work of lesser known and overlooked artists and art communities continues to be mined, with writers articulating new ways to counter the striking imbalances of race, class and gender that continue to affect the arts and the culture industry.”