The DePaul University Library celebrated National Library Week on April 9th with activities focusing on popular materials and offerings in the library, such as comics, games, vinyl records, and table-top role playing games. Special Collections and Archives created a companion pop-up exhibit focusing on pop-culture items from our collection such as games, artists’ books, and graphic novels. Ellin M. Kelly Interns Sarah Wilson and Kiara Ruiz curated the exhibit, and each wrote about a few items that piqued their interest and that may challenge preconceptions of “rare books.” Sarah Wilson wrote the first installment of this two-part series.
Blacks & Whites: The Role of Identity & Neighborhood Action Game
One of the games on display was Blacks & Whites: The Role of Identity & Neighborhood Action Game, created by Psychology Today Games in 1970. The game is set up similarly to Monopoly, however, the objective is to “Experience the ghetto, Live on welfare, Try to buy in the white suburb. Your challenge: To keep the land-hungry majority type from winning the game cheaply and quickly …” (from the back of the box). The game is designed to highlight the inequities faced by Black Americans in the 70’s when attempting to accumulate wealth and purchase property. The twist is that it is strategically designed so that the Black players cannot win, thus emphasizing the reality of racial disparities by emulating the systems in the United States.
Occupy Your Wallet: Photographs of Various Occupy Wall Street Sites, an Ongoing Project, 2011-?
One of the many artists’ books on display was Occupy Your Wallet: Photographs of Various Occupy Wall Street Sites, an Ongoing Project, 2011-? created by Emily Artinian. This artists’ book is a collection of 21 photographs from the Occupy Wall Street movement printed on credit cards. The photos on the cards are original photographs taken by Emily Artinian during October and November in 2011. The backs of the cards imitate a credit card with a magnetic strip at the top along with information about the location and context of the photos. The project contains photographs from the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York City, Chicago, and Delaware The photographs in the DePaul University Special Collections and Archives collection were taken from protests at Zuccotti Park in New York. The piece is an ongoing project where the valueless cards are intended to be given out for free and kept in one’s wallet as a way to parallel the movement. Additionally, the artist created some of the cards as a collection to be displayed at exhibits.
Why You Can’t Get Married: an Unwedding Album
Nava Atlas’s interesting and thought-provoking artists’ book, Why You Can’t Get Married: an Unwedding Album, was on display. The unwedding album tackles the struggle that same-sex couples faced in their legal battles for marriage. It compares the arguments used in court rulings that have denied interracial marriage with the recycled arguments used to oppose gay marriage in the United States. The album is interspersed with quotes like, “The amalgamation of the races is not only unnatural, but is always productive of deplorable results…” (Georgia Supreme Court ruling against the union of Charlotte Scott, a black woman, and Leopold David, a white man, Scott v. Georgia, 1869) and “If we allow gay marriage, then the next thing you know we’ll have brothers and sisters wanting to marry each other, or demands for legalization of polyam[our]ous marriages” (Vermont House and Senate Jury Committee Public Hearings, 2000). This poignant piece deconstructs the traditional wedding album by reminding the viewer that marriage has not been accessible to all. The beauty of the album contrasts with the ugly verbiage used to deny people the right to marry.
These three pieces highlight the ways in which race, class, and sexuality create different realities for people in the United States. These pieces all serve as forms of protest against these oppressive systems by highlighting racial inequity through role playing, documenting protesters and spreading the movement, and connecting struggles for equity. These pieces also highlight Special Collections and Archives’ commitment to collecting social justice related materials that complement DePaul’s Vincentian values. Come view the many more resources available at DePaul University Special Collections and Archives!