Opening Reception for Haunted Files: The Eugenics Record Office

Curated by Noah Fuller and John Kuo Wei Tchen Associate Curator: Mark Tseng Putterman On view Friday, October 3-Friday, March 13, 2015, 11AM-5PM and select Saturdays. Please check here before planning your visit.
 
An immersive re-imagining of the now-defunct Long Island facility, Haunted Files: The Eugenics Record Office transports visitors to the epicenter of American eugenics research and propaganda.
From field reports on mixed-race “’Mongrel Virginians” to interviews with the incarcerated “criminally insane,” these reproduced eugenics files recall how early eugenicists channeled Progressive Era ideals of social progress and state management towards the pursuit of “race betterment” and the defense of Anglo-American racial purity.
Haunted Files explores the histories of American “scientific racism”—from early anti-Asian legislation to eugenics hysteria—that set the stage for modern American paranoia. Out of the buried archives, these “relics” of eugenics confront us with the legacy that continues to trouble national conversations about race, immigration, intelligence, norms, and belonging.
RSVP above by Tuesday, October 1
A project by the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU, Haunted Files consists of a series of installations and public programs, as well as an online space.
 
Related programs:
A Eugenic (Un)Haunting: Extricating the Legacy of American Eugenics From Contemporary Politics and Praxis on Thursday, November 20, 2014, 7-9pm
 
 
Image courtesy of the American Philosophical Society.