Land of  Broken Dreams: A Case Study (2021) is an interactive installation that expands on Carrie Mae Weems’ decades-long exploration of history, violence, and power in the United States. Mid-century modern furniture and analog media from the 1960s, such as View-Master stereoscopes and copies of Life magazine, encourage viewers to pause and immerse themselves in the cultural atmosphere of that pivotal era. References to the Black Panther Party abound, from photographs of party leaders to a summary of their Ten-Point Program, a manifesto calling for structural change at every level for the liberation of Black and Third World people in the U.S. On the east wall, the photographic installation The Push, the Call, the Scream, the Dream (2020) combines Weems’ own photographs with archival images from the 1960s. She created this work in response to the death of U.S. Representative and Civil Rights Movement leader John Lewis. In devising this immersive atmosphere, Weems invites us to consider how these histories of collective organizing, uprising, and mourning resonate within our contemporary moment.

In this iteration of Land of  Broken Dreams: A Case Study, Weems and the students from her spring 2023 “Artist@Work” course have incorporated the history of student activism at Brown University. Drawing from the University’s archives, students selected photographs of significant protests on campus to include in the View-Masters. Students also contributed titles to the History of  Violence volumes displayed on the shelves, offering their individual voices and generational concerns to Weems’ ongoing examination of structures of power and notions of history.