Knowledge is Myth: Chimeric Continuities

Knowledge is Myth: Chimeric Continuities features work by artists and collectives Ami Lien & Enzo Camacho, Candice Lin, Cole Lu, and Ayoung Yu & Nicholas Oh that engage languages of mythmaking as a means of knowledge-making and unmaking, while questioning what constitutes “mythology” (including modern myths) in the formation of history and archives. Drawing from pre-colonial, pre-humanistic, diasporic, and often chimeric modes of knowledge production, these works reconfigure canonical hierarchies of being that separate human and so-called “nonhuman” subjects, realms, and alter-lives. As critical humanities scholar Zikkayah Iman Jackson asks in Becoming Human what does it mean to be homo-narrans (storytelling human) more than just homo-sapiens (thinking/reasoning human)? Knowledge is Myth: Chimeric Continuities further excavates various archives, rare books, manuscripts, and artworks from across Harvard, an institution of both knowledge production and of mythological proportions.