Smithsonian "Racial Brain Collection" Ritual Intervention
       
     
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 My daughter and a friend documented the ritual intervention using my father’s late 20th century Polaroid camera.
       
     
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 People attending the exhibition’s opening event participated in this gesture of care for the ancestors whose brains still remain in a storage facility in Suitland, MD.
       
     
T_Polaroids2_Smithsonian.jpeg
       
     
PamOnlookers_RitualArtifact_Smithsonian.jpg
       
     
 In a statement made in 2023 by Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch III, he said, “We accept the responsibility to right these wrongs to the fullest extent possible.” The ritual asked the people of the Smithsonian how they would move forward with acco
       
     
Villadolid_Smithsonian_polaroid_banig 2.jpeg
       
     
Smithsonian "Racial Brain Collection" Ritual Intervention
       
     
Smithsonian "Racial Brain Collection" Ritual Intervention

On September 7, 2024, I made a ritual intervention as a gesture of care for the ancestors whose brains were unethically removed from their bodies in the early 1900s under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution. These brains were taken to make fraudulent “scientific” claims of white superiority.

The ritual intervention took place at the opening of the exhibition, “Sightlines: Chinatown and Beyond” in the Kogod Courtyard of the National Museum of American Art.

T_Lola4_1800Frame_Smithsonian.jpeg
       
     
       
     

T_Inheritance_1800sFrame_Smithsonian.jpg
       
     
T_AcceptResponsibility_back_Smithsonian.jpeg
       
     
 My daughter and a friend documented the ritual intervention using my father’s late 20th century Polaroid camera.
       
     

My daughter and a friend documented the ritual intervention using my father’s late 20th century Polaroid camera.

Reed_OpalWithFrancis_Archiving_Smithsonian.jpg
       
     
Reed_PolaroidArchive_Smithsonian.jpg
       
     
 People attending the exhibition’s opening event participated in this gesture of care for the ancestors whose brains still remain in a storage facility in Suitland, MD.
       
     

People attending the exhibition’s opening event participated in this gesture of care for the ancestors whose brains still remain in a storage facility in Suitland, MD.

T_Polaroids2_Smithsonian.jpeg
       
     
PamOnlookers_RitualArtifact_Smithsonian.jpg
       
     
 In a statement made in 2023 by Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch III, he said, “We accept the responsibility to right these wrongs to the fullest extent possible.” The ritual asked the people of the Smithsonian how they would move forward with acco
       
     

In a statement made in 2023 by Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch III, he said, “We accept the responsibility to right these wrongs to the fullest extent possible.” The ritual asked the people of the Smithsonian how they would move forward with accountability, which is a deep form of care.

Villadolid_Smithsonian_polaroid_banig 2.jpeg