|
New
History of Art and Architecture professor Shawon Kinew gave
a lecture last month on Gian Lorenzo Bernini's sculpture of
Saint Longinus, c. 1630-1631. (Kris Snibbe - Harvard Staff
Photographer)
|
Two years after receiving
her Harvard Ph.D., Italian Renaissance and Baroque scholar Shawon
Kinew has joined the Department of History of Art and Architecture
as an assistant professor. She is also a Shutzer Assistant Professor
at Radcliffe.
Kinew was born in Canada
on the tribal territory of the Anishinaabe. She was a postdoctoral
fellow in the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship of Scholars
in the Humanities and a lecturer at Stanford, and has held residential
fellowships with the Bibliotheca Hertziana, Max Planck Institute
for Art History in Rome, and the Getty Research Institute.
Q&A
Shawon Kinew
GAZETTE: Where did you grow
up?
KINEW:
I grew up very close to the island where my dad was born on Lake
of the Woods and in Winnipeg, which in some ways was a typical suburban
upbringing although not at all because I was going back and forth
between two places. We had a home on our reservation. Both of my
parents worked for the tribal government and raised us there because
that sense of place and knowing where my brother and I belonged
was important. I dont feel all that connected to Winnipeg
as a home. It was where I went to school, but in terms of the place
I feel connected to in a deeper way that is our reserve,
Onigaming, which is on Lake of the Woods. I spent my summers there
playing with my cousins. With my family, wed spend as many
days as possible looking at rock paintings, picking up pottery shards,
getting to know the islands and the landscape. And when I say landscape,
I dont just mean the land, but the mythologies and stories
attached to those places.
GAZETTE:
Where did you begin your academic career?
KINEW:
I did my honors B.A. at University of Toronto. I quickly realized
in my first year of college that I wanted to study early modern
Italy. The discipline just opened up to me in Toronto in a whole
new way. For me, it was only when I was traveling in Italy, when
I was visiting churches from the 14th century or getting to know
Rome, where I felt like I was finally coming home to myself in a
very real way. Its that combination of the two, having been
connected to the land and the stories and the rock paintings back
home in Canada and also being able to pursue my research in Italy
that felt like: This is it, this is me.
GAZETTE:
You will begin teaching in the spring. What courses?
KINEW:
One is a graduate seminar on Gian Lorenzo Bernini and the other
is an undergraduate class on Renaissance and Baroque art. This fall
Im writing a book manuscript on a 17th-century sculptor named
Melchiorre Cafà and what I call his soft sculptures.
He was a young and brilliant sculptor from Malta who traveled to
Rome, which was very much Berninis Rome at that time. He was
crushed and killed by one of his sculptures when he was my age.
Its always a reminder to me: Have I done that work yet that
I can be proud of?
Cafà was ambitious.
He competed with Bernini and, as a very young sculptor, was able
to carve massive marble altarpieces and sculptural groups in many
of the most prominent churches in Rome. Theres a bit of a
coincidence in choosing this research, which I began as a grad student.
I am still captivated by Cafàs ability to transform
hard stone into soft fluffy clouds and the most tender flesh. But
one of his sculptures, carved in 1665, was Rose of Lima, who became
the first saint born of the Americas. This sculpture was shipped
from Rome and came to Lima in 1670. Already theres a parallel
track in my own life of a kind of bridging of two worlds that people
have often thought of as being separate, but have a history of being
in dialogue and being connected in some form.
GAZETTE:
Why are you celebrating your appointment with a thanksgiving feast
in the Faculty Room?
KINEW:
I wanted in some ways to do something that would be meaningful in
so many of the different communities I belong to at Harvard. I certainly
wanted to strengthen the relationship between our indigenous students
and the humanities, especially my department. To me, having a traditional
feast and a pipe ceremony was a very significant way of doing this.
Many of the indigenous students here will be familiar with ceremonies
like this and, to be honest, dont see these things happening
at this University.
For me, ceremony is very
important because I come from two strong intellectual traditions.
Anishinaabe teachings and stories and ceremony arent always
looked at as part of an intellectual tradition by outsiders, but
they are. They are a different way of knowing and of being in the
world. I have responsibilities as an art historian and also as an
Anishinaabe person. I feel as though I need to look after and care
for the Anishinaabe artifacts and objects that are on campus. We
dont characterize them as objects in our thinking or in our
language. These are animate beings. Having this feast is a way to
feast these spirits and to care for them in the fullest way that
they exist.
As an Anishinaabe person,
Im a visitor on this land, and its time for me to give
back to the people whose land Im on the Massachusetts,
the Wampanoag, and the Nipmuc people. So part of the ceremony is
giving thanks and honoring them. Weve invited representatives
to come feast with us.
Kinews thanksgiving
feast and pipe ceremony, conducted by Elder Fred Kelly of the Anishinaabe,
will take place Friday. An accompanying exhibition curated by Kinew
titled Aadizookaani-gamig, the place where our grandfathers
are cared for: Feasting our Anishinaabe relatives will go
on display in the teaching gallery at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology
and Ethnology.
|
New
Asst Professor @ShawonKinew
inspects Anishinaabe moccasins & a bandolier bag with
Meredith Vasta (@peabodymuseum)
for Kinew's upcoming exhibition, "Aadizookaani-gamig,
the place where our grandfathers are cared for: Feasting our
Anishinaabe relatives at the Peabody Museum"
|
|