Based in Los Angeles, the Morning Star Research Center for the Afterlife of Slavery (MSRCAS) is a California-incorporated 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. The center functions as an archival resource, reading room, and viewing space dedicated to the assembly, analysis, and exhibition of works addressing the enduring impact of Atlantic slavery and antiblackness globally. By maintaining a diverse collection of historical and contemporary materials, MSRCAS facilitates interdisciplinary dialogue at the nexus of contemporary art and Black studies. Its mission supports public programming, curatorial exploration, and theoretical research aimed at deepening the collective understanding of the legacies of slavery.


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1115 E Pico Blvd, Los Angeles, California, USA 90021

Our physical location is coming in 2026!







Programming






Upcoming Stay tuned!


Past
Grand Opening for the physical location is June 28th, 2026 from 6pm-9pm!

Address: 1115 E Pico Blvd, Los Angeles CA, 90042



Corrosive Sublimation: Art & Ab-sense
, Session VI: Black Art & N’est Pas

Saturday, May 16 2026
12 pm EST

Facilitated by Dylan Lackey



Corrosive Sublimation: Art & Ab-sense, Session V: Queer Desublimation and Trans Anarchitecture

Saturday, April 25 2026
12 pm EST

Facilitated by Dylan Lackey
Guest Speakers: Lee Edelman and Jack Halberstam



Corrosive Sublimation: Art & Ab-sense, Session IV: Ab-sens, Lalangue, Pas-Tout: Art and (Self-)Ruin

Saturday, March 28 2026
12 pm EST

Facilitated by Dylan Lackey
Guest Speakers: Fred Moten and Éric Alliez



Corrosive Sublimation: Art & Ab-sense, Session III: Masochism Beyond Sublimation

Saturday, March 14 2026
12 pm EST

Facilitated by Dylan Lackey
Corrosive Sublimation: Art & Ab-sense, Session II (b): Use of Symptoms

March 6 2026
1 pm EST

Facilitated by Dylan Lackey
Guest Speakers: Luke Thurston, Ann Pellegrini, Avgi Saketopoulou

Link to Session Recordings

Corrosive Sublimation: Art & Ab-sense, Session II (a): Use of Symptoms

Saturday, February 28 2026
12 pm EST

Facilitated by Dylan Lackey

Guest Speakers: Derek Hook, Marcus Coelen, and Jamieson Webster

Link to Session Recordings

Corrosive Sublimation: Art & Ab-sense, Session I: A Psychoanalytic Introduction to the Artist

Saturday January 31 2026
12pm EST

Facilitated by Dylan Lackey

Link to recording


Latent Space
An open conversation led by Boz Garden on the occasion of Coleman Collins’ exhibition at Ehrlich Steinberg

Wednesday October 29 2025 
5:30pm

Location: 5540 Santa Monica Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90038

The accompanying texts can be found here:
Frantz Fanon, Black Skin White Masks, 1952
Teju Cole, Tremor, 2023



Book Talk for Patrice D. Douglass’s Engendering Blackness: Slavery and the Ontology of Sexual Violence; joined by Ebony Oldham and Jordan Mulkey

September 21st, 2025

Location: Zoom

Link to Recording






HOW TO CONTRIBUTE TO 
OUR ARCHIVE / LIBRARY






Our Accession Policy & Content Scope

The Morning Star Research Center for the Afterlife of Slavery collects materials of enduring research and cultural value, including but not limited to:

• Published and unpublished texts in Black studies, Black Feminism, Literary Studies, Film/Media Studies, Post/Colonial Studies, Queer Studies, Gender Studies, Slavery Studies, Political Theory, Affect Theory, Ecological Studies, Economics,
Psychoanalysis, Afropessimism, Art History, Cultural Theory, and Aesthetic Philosophy that are relevant to contemporary and historical Black thought;

• Artist publications, zines, exhibition catalogs, and ephemera related to contemporary art practices that engage the histories and aesthetics of slavery and antiblackness;

• Audio-visual materials including films, recorded lectures, interviews, sound works, and music archives relevant to the Center’s project;

• Institutional documents, press releases, correspondence, and printed matter from exhibitions, curatorial projects, or research initiatives responding to slavery’s global
afterlives;

• Donated or deposited personal papers, notes, or annotated works by artists, scholars, and cultural workers whose research or practice contributes to the Center’s mission;

• Accessions may originate from artists, researchers, institutions, and independent archives, or estates.

The Morning Star Research Center welcomes collaboration with other archives, libraries, and cultural institutions with shared commitments to critical memory work and to the ethical handling of materials shaped by or in response to the historical trauma, displacement, and loss incurred as a result of slavery’s representational and economic consequences.

In seeking to steward these materials, the Center also recognizes that no archive is neutral, and endeavors to remain transparent about the conditions under which its holdings are acquired, organized, and made accessible.



Fill out our Archival Donation Form below if you are interested in donating material!


Please note that the filling out the form does not guarantee that your materials will be accepted. As a smaller space, volume is something we have to consider but we may collaborate with you to bring your proposal to a scale we can best accommodate.  

This form simply provides for us a portrait of what we can anticipate from your donation in terms of scope, scale, access/restrictions, and copyright. If we are capable of stewarding your materials, the information you input here will help us build an appropriate agreement!