Jacqueline Stewart, Academy Museum of Motion Pictures Director and President, to Present Exhibition, Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898 -1971 | Chaz’s Journal

“This landmark exhibition seeks to revive misplaced chapters of American movie historical past because it elevates the contributions of Black artists to current a extra inclusive story,” mentioned Ms. Stewart. “We are extremely proud to current Regeneration, an exhibition that demonstrates how the Academy Museum introduces new scholarship, presents a extra expansive imaginative and prescient of American movie historical past, and encourages public dialogue in regards to the previous and current of movie as an artwork kind and a social pressure.”

Regeneration contains seven galleries devoted to: exploring the social and political scenario of Black Americans on the daybreak of cinema within the United States; the illustration of Black folks in early cinema from 1897 to 1915; pioneering impartial Black filmmakers reminiscent of Oscar Micheaux and “race movies,” made for Black audiences from the 1910s to the Forties; Black music in American movie, together with “soundies” and Black musicals; Black stars and movie icons; cinematic tales reflecting the liberty actions; and the daring and pioneering paths Black movie administrators blazed throughout the civil rights motion. 

Throughout the event of the exhibition, co-curators Doris Berger and Rhea Combs collaborated with an advisory group of distinguished students, curators, and filmmakers along with Ms. Stewart, together with: Charles Burnett, filmmaker, Academy member; Ava DuVernay filmmaker, Academy member; Michael Boyce Gillespie, Associate Professor, The City College of New York, Department of Media and Communication Arts; Shola Lynch, Curator, New York Public Library, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, filmmaker, Academy member; Ron Magliozzi, Curator of Film, The Museum of Modern Art;  and Ellen C. Scott, Associate Professor and Head of Cinema and Media Studies, UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television.  

As Chief Artistic and Programming Officer, Stewart has led technique and planning for the Academy Museum’s curatorial, instructional, and public programming initiatives, together with exhibitions, screenings, symposia, publications, workshops, youth packages, and the Academy Museum Podcast. Honored in 2021 as a MacArthur Foundation Fellow, she was a 2019 senior fellow on the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2018. She holds an appointment as Professor of Cinema and Media Studies on the University of Chicago, and beforehand served on the school of Northwestern University.