Diversity in Small/Midsize Museums – VIRTUAL

The Museum’s 2020 interdisciplinary symposium reflects on questions of importance to small to midsize public institutions around the country: How is diversity defined? What is the importance of diversity for museums, science centers, historic houses, and other collecting institutions? How have they addressed questions of diversity? For this convening, undergraduate and graduate students present short presentations that consider these questions and more from a variety of perspectives.

Presentations include:

• Keynote: Darin Waters, PhD, UNC Asheville’s executive director of community engagement and associate professor of history
• Joel Crothers, BA candidate, Appalachian State University: “The Importance of Collections in Local Museums”
• Megan Flattley, PhD candidate, Tulane University: “Diversity Through Engagement: A Community-Driven Exhibition at the Newcomb Art Museum”
• Lydia See, MFA candidate, Western Carolina University: “Decolonizing the Archive for Museum Diversity: Engaging Marginalized Narratives within Collections for Wider Representation in Museums and Archives”
• Virginia Weaver, MA/PhD candidate, UNC Greensboro: “Difficult Transitions: Curating Transsexuality, and the Purpose of Uncertainty”

Presented in conjunction with Intersections in American Art, in partnership with UNC Asheville’s Seventh African Americans in Western North Carolina & Southern Appalachia Conference.