To support Iconoclasm across the Americas, 1500–1900 (April 4–5, 2025), a symposium that brings together eleven leading scholars to present and workshop new research on artistic destruction to expand and diversify discussions on iconoclasm beyond recent historical moments and regions primarily focused on the Global North. The program includes a public dialogue and a closed workshop, where participants exchange research and provide feedback, with plans for the collaborative development and dissemination of an edited volume of essays, addressing a critical gap in scholarship on iconoclasm and the arts of the early Americas. The book, aimed at students, scholars, and museum professionals, will be marketed widely in print and online, as well as at academic conferences and book fairs, with a planned publication in 2026.

To support Resurgence, Reparations, & Return: Restoring Indigenous Epistemologies in Northwest Arkansas’ Contemporary Art Practices & Scholarship, a symposium that aims to explore collective memories and Indigenous futures in Northwest Arkansas and Eastern Oklahoma. Addressing re-Indigenizing spaces through restorative funding, land repatriation, and artistic interventions, while also acknowledging the ongoing effects of rapid gentrification and settler-colonial histories, the event features panels on topics such as monumentality, land return, Indigenous representation, and commemoration of the Trail of Tears, beginning with virtual discussions on the history of Indigenous removal and culminating in visits to significant memorial sites. All programs will be livestreamed and recorded for later access on the University of Arkansas—Fayetteville’s Center for Art as Lived Experience (C.A.L.E.) website, where both live events and panels will be available for viewing through video and audio archives.

To support “Louisville Black Avant-Garde (LBAG) 2025 Legacy Convening,” which focuses on connecting Louisville’s and Atlanta’s Black modern art scenes, locating artworks, capturing knowledge from artists and their families, emphasizing the Louisville-Atlanta link, and building momentum by introducing the project to Atlanta-based art professionals and scholars. The convening is part of a larger project that aims to highlight the culturally significant arts ecosystem led by Black artists in Louisville from 1950 to 1980, a period often overlooked by institutional archives, through exhibitions and publications to engage with artists, historians, and community leaders to reconstruct and celebrate this historically neglected art scene. The convening will feature a combination of private and public audiences.

To support “Exploring Perspectives in Native American Art,” a convening inviting 25 Native American curators, artists, and scholars to discuss nation-building, curatorial practice, tribal relations, and fiduciary obligations within Native American art. Organized by the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and led by Indigenous staff in collaboration with the Kansas City Indian Center and Haskell Indian Nations University, the project focuses on Indigenous collections care and protocol for exhibitions and outreach. The outcomes will be shared on a website and on YouTube, potentially informing a future American Art Curation Handbook.

To support Embodied Histories: Art, Archive, and Memory in the Virgin Islands, a two-day brainstorming session organized by Crucian Heritage and Nature Tourism (CHANT) in Frederiksted, St. Croix, bringing together Virgin Islands artists and thinkers to exchange ideas, to address systemic barriers to accessing their history, and to initiate plans for a traveling exhibition showcasing Virgin Islands art and material culture. The convening fosters in-person dialogue, focusing on archive, memory, and storytelling, and lays the groundwork for the formation of an advisory board to guide the exhibition’s development and to ensure it reflects the community’s significant narratives.