Event: 'Exhibit Opening "About Academia" Cambridge MA' Print
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Date: Thursday, March 03, 2011 At 08:00 am
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A three-channel video installation by Antoni Muntadas addressing the problematic relationship between the production of knowledge and economic power.

About Academia addresses the problematic relationship between the production of knowledge and economic power. Upon entering the gallery space, the viewer is confronted by an installation consisting of three video projections that present the most pressing questions concerning the supposed objectivity of academic knowledge by pointing out the corporatization of institutions of higher learning in the United States and the sometimes controversial positions that universities fall into when trying to physically expand amidst disenfranchised communities, as well as falling into possible contradictions with the agendas of university donors.

Curated by José Falconi, About Academia was conceived and produced at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies Harvard University over a period of three years. During that time, Muntadas not only researched the history of “academia” as an institution in the Western world—tracing its historical development from its inception in ancient Greece to its scholastic rebirth in medieval times, its re-foundation during the Enlightenment, its establishment in the New World, to its present challenges—but also interviewed a dozen renowned faculty members at Harvard, MIT and other research universities across the United States.

Participants include Carol Becker, Noam Chomsky, John Coatsworth, Fernando Coronil, Thomas Cummins, Bradley Epps, David Harvey, Ute Meta Bauer, Doris Sommer, Mark Wigley, and Howard Zinn, among others.

Location: Sert Gallery, Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University, 24 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA