Arts and Race Critical Collective

The Arts and Race Critical Collective (ARCC) was co-founded by PhD students Eric Mazariegos and Jordan Mason Mayfield in 2020 amid political tensions throughout the United States that stemmed from racial inequality. Aiming to foster discussion around how the arts and race coincide, ARCC has found support from the department of Art History & Archaeology, and has begun important discussions with Columbia graduate departments like Anthropology, History, and Ethnomusicology. Through monthly seminar-style meetings with fellow graduate students, ARCC has tackled issues like Identity, Intersectionality, Critical Methodologies, and Knowledge Outside Academia. In the 2020/2021 year, ARCC hosted two prominent scholars in the field of art history—Dr. Denise Murrell, Curator of 19th and 20th century art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Dr. Charlene Villaseñor-Black, Professor of Art History and Chicana/o Studies at UCLA—for lectures and Q&As in the fall and spring semesters. In 2022, ARCC plans on hosting discussions around Inclusive Terms for Art History, Globalism and Art, Critiquing the Canon, and others. Building coalitions among students from different departments and even degree programs (such as between MA/PhD students) has been one of the highlights of the collective since its inception, and we hope to continue to build dynamic networks across campus centered around issues of the arts and race.