Proposal for bilingual workshops within the Role Models program, designed for high school student groups

For the 2024-25 academic year, AWARE: Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions is partnering with artist Cheryl Ann Bolden, a finalist for the AWARE Prize 2023, as part of the educational program at Villa Vassilieff within the Role Models initiative.

The workshops facilitated by Cheryl Ann Bolden and AWARE will draw from a curated selection of objects from her collection to inspire thoughtful discussions on archives, collective memory, matrilineage, and racism. This personal collection includes family memorabilia, discoveries, abandoned objects, and artifacts from history and popular culture, fostering a rich and engaging dialogue. The artist will share her personal archives, enabling students to interact with, handle, and interpret these objects, which she will subsequently present and contextualize. Furthermore, this experience will provide an opportunity to explore AWARE’s documentation center at Villa Vassilieff, which is dedicated to women and non-binary artists, and gender studies.

Cheryl Ann Bolden
Artist, collector, and archivist, Cheryl Ann Bolden is a descendant of six generations of African Americans. In 1998, she relocated to Paris, where she established Precious Cargo, a traveling museum that curates historical objects connecting the narratives of the African diaspora. Her artistic practice primarily revolves around objects that embody memory. She engages with pieces and originals that illuminate the transatlantic slave trade, as well as the periods of segregation and colonialism in the United States and Europe. Regularly working with diverse communities, she organizes workshops in middle and high schools, encouraging participants to interact with the archives by handling and claiming ownership of the objects. This hands-on approach enables them to connect with the histories embedded in these items and to initiate meaningful dialogues and reflections based on their experiences. By reactivating objects typically reserved for museum contexts, Cheryl Ann Bolden invites the public—both from the diaspora and beyond—to intimately reclaim these elements and their memories in a way that feels approachable and, paradoxically, de-dramatized. Departing from the idea of inaccessible archives locked away behind glass, she animates these objects through performances, installations, and assemblages.

Reservation
Interested teachers can reserve with Tamara Choukair Hilal by sending an email to [email protected]

Practical information
1.5 to 2.5 hours, available upon request.
Bilingual workshops (French and English).
These sessions are designed for art, history-geography, and English classes.