ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how artists engaging in a range of critical practices draw upon the continually evolving and useful concept of hybridity as a methodological approach towards social justice. Theaster Gates refers to the methodology of hybridity as ‘temple swapping’, an exchange of values between seemingly unlike groups, in his case the black church and the museum, to explore their interconnections – their relational sensibilities – and, in so doing, to create a new and powerful force for good. To be the compassionate and equitable institutions that new museum ethics imagines, institutions must be willing to accept the responsibility of activism. The exhibition itself was intimate and sonorous; poetry and song were Gates’s tools to make hybrid the creative forces of Milwaukee’s churches, factories and museums. The chapter argues that hybridity is a dynamic methodological approach useful to museums and galleries committed to equality, social justice and cultural rights.
