Join curator Olivia Ann Breibart and Columbia Professor Rachel Adams for a conversation where they reflect on the absence and presence of care within the works in the exhibition Traces of Care as well as discuss Adams’ upcoming book Love, Money, Duty. With stories of her own experiences of caring and being cared for, Adams analyzes the work, feelings, and ethical dilemmas associated with care, including the unwholesome sensations of boredom, resentment, exhaustion, and disgust. From the universal dependence of infancy to elder care, the intimacy of home and family to institutions like hospitals, nursing facilities, and asylums, Love, Money, Duty considers our ambivalence about vulnerability and need as it is shaped by capitalism, race, and gender. This program will situate Adams’ scholarship in the exhibition, inviting a deeper exploration on the radical possibilities of care and the devastating consequences of its failure.

To attend this event please register here:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wallach-talks-in-conversation-rachel-adams-and-olivia-ann-breibart-tickets-1270727202269?aff=oddtdtcreator

Rachel Adams is a professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. She specializes in 20th- and 21st-century literatures of the United States and the Americas, disability studies and health humanities, media studies, theories of race, gender, and sexuality, and food studies. Her books include Raising Henry: A Memoir of Motherhood, Disability, and Discovery (2014) and Love, Money, Duty: Stories of Care in Our Times (2025).  

Olivia Ann Breibart is a 2025 MODA Curates Fellow and curator of Traces of Care. Based in New York, she is an emerging curator of modern and contemporary art. Her work engages with feminist, gender, and sexuality theories as well as disability studies, exploring concepts of intimacy, labor, and visibility. Olivia earned a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University, where she studied Fine Art and Art History. She has previously held positions at Alison Bradley Projects and Phillips.

MODA Curates is an annual opportunity offered by the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery and the MA in Modern and Contemporary Art, Critical and Curatorial Studies Program (MODA) for outstanding curatorial proposals related to student theses.