FOUNDATIONS

A Global Black Art History Intensive

A focused introduction to Black art, visual culture, diaspora aesthetics, and contemporary image politics.

June 2026

Online

Limited Cohort

OVERVIEW

This intensive explores Black art history through the interconnected frameworks of visual culture, diaspora, ethics, memory, and institutional critique. Moving across painting, photography, film, archives, exhibitions, and contemporary media, the course examines how Black artists, scholars, and cultural practitioners have shaped—and challenged—the histories and structures through which art is seen, interpreted, collected, and circulated.

Designed for artists, educators, curators, writers, students, and cultural workers, the intensive combines close visual analysis, critical discussion, and interdisciplinary scholarship to situate Black art history within broader questions of public life, representation, and cultural power.

Participants will engage key debates surrounding museums and archives, Black visuality, race and spectatorship, diasporic exchange, ethics of display, and contemporary curatorial practice while developing a deeper understanding of the historical and intellectual foundations shaping Black visual culture today. Structured as a small cohort learning environment, the intensive emphasizes dialogue, reflection, and collective inquiry over conventional lecture-based instruction. Readings, visual materials, and live conversations are curated to create a rigorous yet accessible space for interdisciplinary exchange and sustained critical engagement.

The course forms part of the broader Visual Dynamics Labs ecosystem of public humanities programming, research, and cultural strategy focused on Black visual culture, ethics, media, and public futures.

THEMES

• Black visual culture and representation

• Diaspora, migration, and transnational exchange

• Museums, archives, and institutional critique

• Ethics, care, and cultural memory

• Race, image, and spectatorship

• Contemporary Black artistic practices

• Photography, film, and media studies

• Exhibition histories and curatorial practice

• Public humanities and cultural infrastructure

• Critical writing and visual analysis

• Global Black cultural networks and contemporary discourse

FORMAT

Feature ‍ ‍Detail‍ ‍

Duration 1 Week Intensive

Format Online Live Seminar

Schedule Live + Recorded Sessions + Independent Reading

Cohort Size Limited Cohort (20–30 participants)

Structure Lectures, dialogue, visual analysis, discussion

Materials Curated readings, visual resources, reference bibliography

Platform Zoom + Shared Digital Resources

Audience Artists, educators, curators, students, writers, cultural workers

Level Open to emerging and advanced participants

Focus Black visual culture, ethics, diaspora, museums, and media

Outcomes Critical frameworks, historical knowledge, interdisciplinary dialogue

Includes Live sessions, resource archive, selected bibliography, certificate of participation

FACULTY

Raél Jero Salley

Rael Jero Salley Studio

Rael Jero Salley is a scholar, curator, and educator working across art history, visual culture, media studies, and public humanities. He is Professor in the History of Art, Design, and Visual Culture at MICA and Founding Director of The Space for Creative Black Imagination, Inc. and Visual Dynamics Labs.

His work explores Black visual culture, ethics, diaspora, care, and contemporary artistic practice across Africa, Europe, and the United States. He is the author of The Visual Dynamics of Art, Black Care, and Ethics in South African Art (Routledge, 2025) and has developed collaborative projects and public programs with institutions including the Liverpool Biennial, Johns Hopkins University, Yale University, and the Venice Biennale.

SELECTED READINGS

• The New Negro — Alain Locke

• The Souls of Black Folk — W. E. B. Du Bois

• W. E. B. Du Bois, “Criteria of Negro Art”

• Black Skin, White Masks — Frantz Fanon

• The Black Atlantic — Paul Gilroy

• Poetics of Relation — Édouard Glissant

• Stuart Hall, “Cultural Identity and Diaspora”

• Art on My Mind — bell hooks

• Tina M. Campt, Listening to Images

• Nicholas Mirzoeff, The Right to Look

• Kobena Mercer, Travel & See: Black Diaspora Art Practices Since the 1980s

• Fred Moten, In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition

• Huey Copeland, Bound to Appear: Art, Slavery, and the Site of Blackness in Multicultural America

• Okwui Enwezor, “The Postcolonial Constellation”

• Saidiya Hartman, “Venus in Two Acts”

• Ariella Aïsha Azoulay, Potential History: Unlearning Imperialism

• Rael Jero Salley, The Visual Dynamics of Art, Black Care, and Ethics in South African Art (Routledge, 2025)

LEARNING APPROACH