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.

To support Asian American Art, Pasts and Futures, a one-day research workshop hosted by the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) and the Archives of American Art (AAA), and geared towards stimulating research and engagement with Asian American art history. Bringing together 65 visiting museum, academic, and community-based scholars, Smithsonian staff, and SAAM fellows to rethink and share histories of artists of Asian descent in the United States, the workshop springs from an initiative at SAAM to expand the representation of Asian American artists in the museum’s collection and public displays; to preserve historic works of Asian American art; and to foster scholarship on Asian American artists and their communities. It privileges visual engagement with works of art and dialogue rather the written presentations.

To support the convening “Reflecting Forward: Learning from American Art Reinstallations,” which assembles scholars, curators, educators, and artists to discuss best practices in stewarding community advisory groups, establishing multivocal models of interpretation, and supporting the integration of Native and non–Native American art collections. Drawing from the Passages in American Art reinstallation, supported by a Terra Foundation grant, the event creates a forum to explore the questions raised through the advisory group process centering Indigenous knowledge and values and exploring New England’s connection to the Atlantic Slave Trade, which anchored this project. The program is open to the public and its recordings available through the museum website.

To support the “Momus Art Writers and Fellows” Convening in New York City, which gathers art writers, critics, journalists, editors, and publishers to strengthen and seed the future of the field of art publishing. The event offers a diverse group of emerging and established art writers the chance to network, exchange insights, and initiate future collaborations in independent art publishing. The format will consist of both public and closed events including lectures, workshops, and roundtables.

To support Native Arts Symposium at the Denver Art Museum (DAM), a two-day symposium examining the past, present, and future of Indigenous representation in museums and in global contexts. Concepts to be explored during this event celebrating 100 years of collecting Indigenous art and three decades of Indigenous-focused arts gatherings at DAM include the past and future of Indigenous art collecting and collaboration, the evolution of DAM’s commitment to Indigenous communities, the work and exhibition of contemporary Indigenous artists globally, and Indigeneity around the world. The symposium will be livestreamed and its recording made available on DAM’s YouTube channel.

To support Qinnirajaattuq/ripples: Making Waves in Inuit Art, a symposium in Montreal, QC, focusing on the current state of Inuit visual arts and their public interpretation across Inuit Nunaat. The event gathers around 300 artists, curators, writers, editors, arts administrators, and supporters to discuss the evolution of Inuit art over the past decade and future collaboration opportunities, featuring participation from Inuit across Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. The conference coincides with International Inuit Day and include various activities and exhibitions, organized in partnership with Concordia University, the University of Victoria, Inuit Futures in Arts Leadership, the Inuit Art Foundation, La Guilde, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and the Avataq Cultural Institute.

To support “Confluence,” an Indigenous-led convening that engages with art criticism focused on sovereign reflection on contemporary and continuum-based Indigenous arts practice, bringing together faculty, writers, and thinkers of all stages in their careers or pathways of academic access for two weeks of exchange, creativity, and reflection. The event concludes with a public gathering where participants can share their writings and reflections, to be recorded and shared on Forge Project’s website. A publication in 2027 is also under consideration.

To support Remai Modern’s organization of Gathering the Great Plains (GGP) in partnership with the MacKenzie Art Gallery (MAG), the Indigenous Curatorial Collective / Collectif des commissaires autochtones (ICCA), the Black Curators Forum (BCF), Plug In ICA, the First Americans Museum, and the Oklahoma Contemporary Art Center. The convening brings together Black and Indigenous artists, curators, and scholars in a cross-border collaboration to reconceptualize the cultural production of the region, drawing on precolonial regional and eco-systemic delineations to counter the logic of national borders and art-historical frameworks premised on national identity. All lectures and panels are broadcast and recorded over Zoom and the recordings posted on the GGP website, as well as on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. A publication will be produced following the in-person gathering.