Book review: Tamara Lanier’s fight with Harvard to #freerenty
Wednesday 12 February at 8 p.m. (EST) / 5 p.m. (PST)
At this online event, partly presented by Hyperallergic And Ica laActivist Tamara Lanier and HyperallergicEditor -in -chief HRag Vartanian will discuss it Of these roots (Crown, 2025), Her new book about her struggle with Harvard University about ownership and control over images of her great -great -grandfather Renty Taylor and his daughter Delia, who were photographed for racist research by a professor.
Hyperallergic has reported in recent years on the fight against #freerenty, in particular in an episode from the Hyperallergic Podcast, in which Vartanian Lanier interviews, and in a special edition from 2021 in which her current lawsuit is being investigated against Harvard.
Laniers memoirs Of these roots Comes from this search for the Daguerreotypes of her ancestors. It is more than a personal story, it is a call to confront with the constant hereafter of slavery and the unfinished case of restoring the rights in the United States. Lanier raises important questions about the repair work and the decolonization of museums and archives and wonders: who is the owner of these images, given the total lack of permission in its production? What does the work of undoing the inheritances of slavery actually look like?
The names of Renty and Delia are announced on banners made by artist Cauleen Smith, to be seen at the entrance of ICA LA as part of the exhibition Scientia Sexualis.
Tamara Lanier and Hrag Vartanian are accompanied by Jennifer Doyle, quert theorist, art critic and professor of English at the University of California, Riverside; and Jeanne Vaccaro, scientist, curator and co-founder of the NYC Trans Oral History Project.
Participate in the interview on 12 February at 8 p.m. (EST) / 5 p.m. (PST) via Zoom.
This virtual event is produced in a collaboration between Ica la And Hyperallergic.
