To support planning, research, and development for the redesign of a new permanent exhibition, Honoring our Journey, 2.0 (HOJ 2.0). HOJ 1.0 dates to 2008, but today the museum exists in a different context—recovering from an economic downturn exacerbated by COVID, battling a rise in anti-Asian/anti-AANHPI/anti-immigrant hate, and accommodating for demographic shifts and rapid increases in AANHPIs in the region. HOJ 2.0 displays artworks, objects, photos, and archival items that reflect the new reality.

To support Scenic Vistas: Landscape as Culture in Early New York (working title), a collection-based exhibition that is the first to consider decorative arts as evidence of New York’s embrace of landscape as a cultural asset prior to the emergence of the Hudson River School. Presented in conversation with contemporary art works, the exhibition connects the traditions of Hudson Valley design and stewardship as well as highlighting Boscobel’s house, collection, and Hudson River setting.

To support planning for The Tennessee River: A Journey through its Art, Biodiversity, Histories, and Lifeways (tentative title), a place-based, collaborative project that uniquely combines the McClung’s art, scientific, and material culture collections, bringing together Native experts, scholars, and community representatives to interpret the river in a long-term exhibition. The immersive exhibition showcases the rich flora and fauna of the river and celebrates its cultural significance, fostering a deeper understanding of its multifaceted history and lifeways.

To support Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Multiple Offerings, a collection-based exhibition that is the first major retrospective in more than 20 years of the work of the underrecognized artist. Multiple Offerings provides audiences an unprecedented opportunity to see the entirety of Cha’s oeuvre through more than 100 objects drawn primarily from the collection and archives, along with select loans of works by other artists to contextualize Cha’s practice within larger cultural, social, and political narratives in American art and to show the lasting impact of her legacy. Orgranizers will bring together a diversity of voices that have been historically underrepresented and excluded from writing narratives of American art.

To support Emily Cole: Art & Artistry, a traveling collection-based exhibition that reclaims the successful 19th-century career of Emily Cole and positions her work within the trajectory of American art through new scholarship and the contemporary artwork of eight women from the Asian, Black, Caribbean diaspora, and Indigenous communities. The initiative aims to foreground 40 of her botanical paintings on paper and porcelain from the collection and to shift interpretative frameworks that persist around botanical and ceramic work from hobby to art.

To support Impressions Over Time: Two Decades of Print at the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, a collection-based exhibition that provides comprehensive insight into the history of the workshop, signature programs (e.g., Exhibitions, the Blackburn Legacy Fellowship, the Kahn | Mason Studio Immersion Project Fellowship, and the Blackburn Print Archives), and the artists involved in the workshop’s community. The exhibition is organized around three key themes: Early Foundation of The Printmaking Workshop and Its Roots; Print Experimentation and Community-Model Spaces; and Continuing the Legacy.

To support About Us: A Community Reinstallation of the Collection, the first consideration of the Queens Museum’s photography collection with an emphasis on appealing to its local audience. The collection-based exhibition is a narrative, intergenerational, and non-linear investigation of modern and contemporary photography, speaking to its audience by appealing to the hybridization of identity that is distinctly American.

To support planning for a new American Decorative Art gallery, a long-term collection installation that brings together a range of objects from the 1630s to the present including glass, ceramics, furniture, silver, fiber arts, jewelry, tools, shop signs, weapons, and musical instruments. While the project predominantly features objects made in North America, with a focus on Essex County, MA (where PEM is located), works will also originate from the Caribbean and Central and South America, with selected global objects having historic provenance in the Americas. Local and regional community members, including local Dominican and Latinx communities, will provide input on the checklist, labels, and programming.

To support Water’s Edge: The Art of Truman Lowe, a collection-based exhibition that is the first major retrospective of the acclaimed artist, educator, and curator. Lowe created sculptures made of willow branches, feathers, and other organic materials, evoking the rivers, streams, and waterfalls of the Wisconsin woodlands where he was raised and the canoes used to traverse them. His sculptures and sensitively rendered pastel and charcoal drawings also reflect on the cultural traditions, knowledge, and history of his Ho-Chunk community and family.

To support Towards Liberation, a collection reinstallation project whose centerpiece is a nearly 150-year-old work of art featuring the Black Gospel Window, the earliest known stained-glass depiction of Christ as a man of color. Placing the Black Gospel Window in conversation with artworks from the permanent collection that represent a range of styles, mediums, and time periods, Towards Liberation will explore the ways various communities in the United States have created and used art in their fight for equality and social justice.

To support planning for a reinterpretation and reinstallation of the American Art Galleries, a project that seeks to reimagine how we tell stories about American art and history and how Rochester’s rich history reflects the complexities of national stories. The resulting collections program and exhibitions will better reflect the diversity of audiences and the nation.