Return, Repatriate, Repair
- Jake Nussbaum with Abdul-Aliy Muhammad
- School of Arts & Sciences
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Student Creative Production Grant
Philadelphia, June 14, 2021 — A series of "Rally for Reparations" posters are seen affixed to the gates of a building on the University of Pennsylvania campus. Photo courtesy Jake Nussbaum and Abdul-Aliy Muhammad. Poster designs by Nikita Griffin.
Jake Nussbaum and Abdul-Aliy Muhammad will develop a collaborative zine chronicling the history of activism around human remains at the Penn Museum, working with other artists and activists local to the communities shared and sometimes displaced by the University of Pennsylvania.
The zine will feature short essays; a comprehensive timeline that places the 1985 MOVE bombing in West Philadelphia, within the longer arc of medical racism and anti-Blackness at the university; a series of creative interventions; transcriptions of speeches delivered at the two protests Jake and Abdul-Aliy were involved in organizing in 2021 around the abolition of the Morton Cranial Collection and the immediate return of the remains of grave-robbed Black Philadelphians to local Black spiritual communities; a community-sourced compendium of responses to the question – “What would reparations look like?”; proposals for next steps; and an appendix of resources for further reading and study.
Once all the materials are gathered, Jake and Abdul-Aliy will work with a local designer to lay out the zine using a collage aesthetic that remains true to their community activist roots. They plan to print 500 copies of the zine through a local print shop in summer of 2022, which they will distribute for free at coffee shops, bookstores, community events, and protests.