DOI 10.60531/INSIGHTOUT.2023.1.3| WILLIAMS-FORSON: SEEKING THE ABSENT POTENTIAL_ INSIGHTOUT 1(2023) 40exhibitions need to involve theory, practice, and reflection. Or, in short, praxis. Working from this pointof view, I sought to“queer” the exhibition, which according to Sullivan and Middleton basically means todeviate from whatever is perceived to be the normor the traditional, the dominant way of seeing things,specifically to push back on homophobia and transphobia. At the same time, there was an investment inshifting the narrative to challenge traditional powersystems that viewed enslaved women, men, and children—of all ages, abilities, and sexualities who worked in either(or both) the plantation household orthe fields—as mere powerless servants. Consequently, I embraced the position suggested by theoristCathy Cohen, who rejects the label“queer” becauseit is“fraught with unspoken assumptions which inhibit the radical political potential of this category”2.labelling resources, and more, almost allmuseums have been, and continue to be,complicit in replicating and reproducing inequitable power relations.Sullivan and Middleton include curatorial practicesthat can and should be queered to include“juxtaposing disparate objects; tracing object biographies;cataloguing diverse interpretations and multipleontologies facilitating the emergence of previously marginalised voices, knowledges, and forms ofengagement; and acknowledging[...] structuralviolence”4. As the curator, I did not want to see inequitable power relations perpetuated, and arguably, neither did the NLM, which is probably why theyinvited me to lead why they invited me to lead theproject.Building on Cohen’s notion of freeing the radical political potential of queer, I noted, too, what performance theorist Sandra Richards refers to as the“absent potential” that was embedded in the descriptionof the library’s goals for the exhibition:“to explorethe nation’s first First Lady, Martha Washington, andfood” and“to consider[...] the role of women and enslaved peoples in preparing food for the family and/or plantations, among other themes”. I wanted to domore than consider this possibility, I wanted to makeit a central focus of the exhibition.Further thoughts about this interpretive project mirrored one of the central claims found inQueering theMuseum. That is,“museums can, and should be activeparticipants in the articulation of critically engagedand socially transformative ways of knowing, being,[and] doing”.3And, this must be a goal becauseFrom collection practices to interpretations, object placement, cataloguing andMeals Tell Stories/Martha Washington+ Food –The Planning MeetingThe exhibition design team and curators held theirinitial creative kick-off meeting in December of 2016to explore potential narrative approaches for theproject. During the first half of the meeting, I sat silent, listening to all of the perspectives and ideas. Wewalked into the meeting with the tentative title of theproject beingMartha Washington+Food, and thegoal of leaving the meeting with an agreed-upon storyline that would inform and focus the research anddevelopment of the content and project schedule.As I sat there silent, taking notes, I thought abouthow intersectionality would inform this project butalso about what was happening in Washington, DC,Maryland, and Virginia during that time. The more Ithought about these things, the more I saw the potential to do more. Our exhibit’s completion would coincide with the opening of the Smithsonian Institution’s2Cathy J. Cohen,“Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential of Queer Politics?”, GLQ, 3/4(1997), 437–465, at451.3Sullivan and Middleton,(see n. 1), 109.4Ibid., 110.
