Cuban American artist and writer Coco Fusco will discuss the creation of her 2021 video work Your Eyes Will Be an Empty Word, on view September 16, 2023, through January 7, 2024, at the Johnson Museum. Fusco shot footage of the waters around Hart Island, which is home to the largest mass grave in the United States and where New York’s unclaimed victims of Covid-19 have been buried. The film evolved from research that Fusco conducted about the history of artistic representation of plagues and other epidemics of infectious diseases.

This talk, free and open to the public, is the first major program cosponsored by Cornell’s Public History Initiative and the Johnson Museum, highlighting how artists explore themes of history, memory, and the archive through their work.

Free registration to view this talk virtually is made possible through eCornell here: https://ecornell.cornell.edu/keynotes/overview/K101923/

The Findlay Family Lecture is funded by a generous gift from the Findlay Family Foundation. Fusco’s visit has been made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, with additional support from the Cornell University Department of Art.