I dropped in Sunday on the Walker’s recent civic engagement forum: The Spectacle of Death:The Role of Disaster and Tragedy in Shaping Community. Using the images in the current exhibition, Andy Warhol/SUPERNOVA: Stars, Deaths, and Disaster, 1962-1964 as a jumping off point, the forum set out to explore ways that man-made and natural disasters shape culture. Panelists included Timothy Mennel (managing editor of the Andy Warhol catalogue raisonne), Yasmil Raymond (Walker Assistant Curator and co-curator of the Andy Warhol exhibition), Robyne Robinson (KMSP Fox 9 news anchor), and John Schott (Chair of the Cinema and Media Studies Department at Carleton College).
Out of curiosity, I did a Google image search and the first hit for “disaster” was this:
The Boston Molasses Disaster of January 15, 1919.
That was SO not what I was expecting! I’d never even heard of this - an incident in which a truck full of molasses explodes and in the ensuing flood, 21 people die, a fire station is knocked over, and a steel support for an elevated train is crumpled. Whoa.
Anyway, about 30 people showed up to the forum. Thirty enthusiastic people showed up. It was a great conversation, running nearly two hours, and I think if people had had their way it could have gone on longer. The comments were awesome! And, lucky you, I think they are going to be throwing it up on the Walker Channel…