Maureen Cummins
ReCategorized, 2021
NY
One of twenty copies. Signed by the artist.
903
Oblong quarto. (16)ff. Using high-resolution scans of archival materials, Cummins traces the history of the documentation and standardization of the refugee crisis. It interrogates the very practice of the archive...
Oblong quarto. (16)ff. Using high-resolution scans of archival materials, Cummins traces the history of the documentation and standardization of the refugee crisis. It interrogates the very practice of the archive it reproduces: How can we collate and label humans? How can we assign them to categories when, as refugees, they have none? What does it mean to the historical record to be a refugee? The majority of the evidence is sourced from Historic Images in Memphis, Tennessee, and depict news clippings, official stamps, annotations in pencil and pen, and barcodes. The exhibits include Spaniards fleeing to France during the Spanish Civil War, Muslims leaving India for Pakistan, the scattering of Koreans during the Korean War, and other refugees from East Germany, Vietnam, Cuba, Cyprus, the Congo, and Guatemala. Bound in the style of an album, in half black cloth with linen over boards. Fine.