Documenting "Performance Remains": A Visual Examination of Memory, Pedagogy, and Consequences
Brian Harmon


In the Fall of 2014, Dr. Jennifer Tyburczy led a group of students at the University of South Carolina in an upper level course about the relationship between critical performance and social justice advocacy. In one project, the students engaged the slave-owning past and the (mostly) nameless slaves who built the historic Horseshoe at USC. The students brought only chalk and their voices for a reverential performance during which they sang songs and wrote messages on the bricks. It lasted about fifteen minutes, after which the students dispersed. Brian Harmon documented the entire morning, and was still there when the police arrived. Months later, the horrific events at Emanuel AMC in Charleston, and the subsequent successful push to remove the confederate flag from the statehouse in South Carolina, reflect the conflicts inherent in South Carolina. The official reaction of the university administration about the need for recognition and empathetic memorials stands in stark contrast to the actions of the campus police in this video. "Documenting 'Performance Remains': A visual examination of memory, pedagogy, and consequences" provides instructors and researchers who are interested in performance and memory with both an inspiration and a warning.




Brian Harmon is a doctoral candidate in Rhetoric and Composition at The University of South Carolina. His work investigates how digital documentary methods might be deployed in classrooms as both an evaluative research method and as a pedagogical tool that can encourage and enable critical pedagogy and social advocacy. Before returning to academia, Brian worked professionally in New Zealand and China as a photographer, video producer, and creative manager for a range of commercial and social entities.
Brian's website]

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License..