RAAMP Coffee Gatherings

Our monthly gatherings give participants an opportunity to informally chat about a dedicated topic that relates to their work as academic art museum professionals and the mission of their institutions.

If you are an academic art museum professional and would like to propose a topic for a Coffee Gathering, please contact Cali Buckley (cbuckley@collegeart.org or (212-392-4435).

Invite: Designing a Collection Plan | Tuesday, October 22, 2019 at 3:00 pm (EST)

Curatorial Work as Academic Labor | Recording and Resources

To better understand the range of job descriptions and promotional review criteria that apply to those who perform curatorial work at academic museums or galleries, Meredith Lynn and Claire L. Kovacs created a survey which they shared with their colleagues in the field. In this Coffee Gathering, the pair reveal their findings and resources they have compiled.

Meredith Lynn: "What this [research] has reinforced for me though is that we aren't going to get things unless we advocate for ourselves. It means that we need to be more informed and also get over some of our hang ups about asking for things. And so for me it's been reinforced that I'm going to have to continue my own development, and negotiation, and advocacy skills on my own behalf."

Claire L. Kovacs: "And, jumping off that point, I think these conversations of not just asking for it...but also that we're communicating with each other...and sharing with each other the realities of our jobs so we're not all operating in the dark, in our own isolated spaces. I think that's really important as well. Because that helps me advocate for myself and it helps me lift all of our boats up."

 

"It can be hard to advocate because we are in some ways considered
part of a peer group of faculty and staff at our institutions
but also separate from them."

Invite: Curatorial Work as Academic Labor｜Tuesday, September 24 at 3:00 PM (EST)

Meredith Lynn is an artist, curator, and educator based in Tallahassee, Florida. In her art practice she frequently explores the historical, political, and social issues surrounding land management and ownership. Her curatorial specialty is contemporary art, with a particular focus in interactive and new media art. Her work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Indiana Arts Commission, the Minnesota State Arts Board, Northern Lights, and the Florida Department of Cultural Affairs and most recently shown at the Morris Graves Museum of Art in Arcata, California and the Wiregrass Museum in Dothan, Alabama. She is curator of the Museum of Fine Arts at Florida State University where she also teaches in the Department of Art. Claire L. Kovacs is the Curator of Collections and Exhibitions at Binghamton University. She obtained her PhD from the University of Iowa and her master’s and bachelor’s degrees from Case Western Reserve University – all in art history. She has curated exhibitions at the Figge Art Museum, Coe College, Krasl Art Center, DePaul University, and at Augustana College, where she was (until recently) the Director of the Augustana Teaching Museum of Art. Her strategies for curatorial work and programming emphasize the ways that academic museums explore contemporary issues, foster interdisciplinary inquiry, create space for a multiplicity of voices and perspectives, and function as a site of dynamic community engagement. She underscores intersectional equity, diversity, accessibility and inclusion in her curatorial work. Her research practice grapples with ways that art historical research can support ‘The Common Good’ (to borrow a phrase from the NEH), using curatorial practice and writing as a mechanism by which to amplify under-told stories.

Institution as Material｜Recording and Resources

In this Coffee Gathering Nicola Lees (Director and Curator of 80WSE at Steinhardt School at New York University), discusses the role artists have played as self-organizers, as either curators or presenters of their own art and art by others. She also discusses the ways artists have unlearned, dis-invented, and deliberately misunderstood how works of art are circulated and displayed within institutional practice.

"The way we function doesn’t fit into a traditional academic [system]… We’re trying to be a space where that can be thought through in different ways." - Nicola Lees

Invite: Institution as Material｜Wednesday, August 14, 2019 at 2:00 PM (EST)

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Training for Educators｜Recording and Resources

In this Coffee Gathering Amber Inwood (Museum Education Specialist for the Barry Art Museum at Old Dominion University) shared her experience developing a pilot training program for gallery educators, which focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion.

"We are also very fortunate to have a design space that is very relatable and inclusive. The Barry Art Museums’ exhibition spaces are designed under the premise of the slow art movement. Essentially, the slow art movement is a design principle, but also a museum principle, in which the objects are placed within the space according to how they relate to one another. It is visitor centric. The number one goal is that any visitor coming into the space has an emotional connection...I had a five-year-old little boy come in here and say to me that he felt like he was in a box of crayons." - Amber Inwood

Invite: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Training for Educators｜Monday, July 22, 2019 at 2:00 PM (EST)

Digital Aesthetics｜Recording and Resources

"Digital art is more like liquid. One of the great advantages of it is that through connection it can flow into anyone's device, so it has an amazing ability to spread wider and farther out." - C.J. Yeh 

In this Coffee Gathering Cali Buckley,  CAA’s Grants and Special Programs Manager, discusses curating digital art with Professor C.J. Yeh and Exhibitions Manager Austin Thomas from FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology) in house at CAA’s headquarters.

Invite: Digital Aesthetics?!｜Tuesday, June 25, 2019 at 3:00 PM (EST)

Engaging Educators in Art Museum Galleries: Professional Development for PreK–12 Teachers｜Recording and Resources

In this Coffee Gathering Dana Carlisle Kletchka, an Assistant Professor of Art Museum Education in the Department of Arts Administration, Education, and Policy at The Ohio State University discusses post-critical art museum education theory; professional development for PreK–12 teachers in art museum contexts; the use of social media and digital technologies on interpretation and engagement in the art museum; and the professional positionality of art museum educators within the profound paradigmatic shift of art museums over the last 40 years.

Invite: Engaging Educators in Art Museum Galleries: Professional Development for PreK–12 Teachers｜Monday, April 29, 2019 at 1:00 PM (EST)

Social Action, Censorship, and Campus Art Museums｜Recording and Resources

"I don't want to miss the chance to say be bold and try not to allow the controversy and personal toll to keep you from doing the next big, bold thing." -Saralyn Reece Hardy

 

"I think it's really important you keep pushing. You know, this kind of kicked the door open to have this conversation and it was a conversation we had been asked not to really have. And since since, we've been having it in a lot of different ways." - Matthew Clay-Robinson

This Coffee Gathering includes leaders and facilitators:

Saralyn Reece Hardy is the Marilyn Stokstad Director at the Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas. Prior to her time there, she served as Director of Museums and Visual Arts at the National Endowment for the Arts and as Director of the Salina Art Center in Salina, Kansas.

Matthew Clay-Robison is Gallery Director at York College of Pennsylvania. His curatorial philosophy focuses on the intersection of visual art and social justice. His own work as an artist addresses sociopolitical issues through printmaking. He holds a BFA from the University of Connecticut and MFA from the University of Maryland.

Daniel Bejar is an interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Bejar was a fellow at the New York Foundation for the Arts and received grants from the Franklin Furnace Fund Grant and the Rema Hort Mann Foundation, among others.

Invite: Social Action, Censorship, and Campus Art Museums｜Tuesday, March 19, 2019 at 2:00 PM (EST)

Is that a Picasso in Your Dorm Room? ｜Recording and Resources

This Coffee Gathering features a special extended hour-and-a-half Coffee Gathering with our hosts, Jessica Cloer, Diane Hart, and Ariana Webber, as they discuss different models of student art lending programs at the Rose Art Museum, the Williams College Museum of Art, and the MIT List Visual Arts Center.

Invite: Is that a Picasso in Your Dorm Room? Art Lending Programs for Students｜Tuesday, December 18, 2018 from 1:30-3 PM (EST)

Curriculum Development Workshops｜Recording and Resources

This Coffee Gathering addresses different approaches to training instructors from any discipline to integrate permanent collections and special exhibitions into their teaching, highlights a recent faculty workshop model adopted by Oberlin College’s Allen Memorial Art Museum, and considers key partnerships within parent institutions to facilitate the training process. The discussion is led by Liliana Milkova, Curator of Academic Programs at the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, and co-facilitated by Hunter O’Hanian, Executive Director of CAA.

Invite: Curriculum Development Workshops｜Tuesday, October 23, 2018 at 1:30 PM (EST)

Invite: Models of Curricular Exhibitions｜Tuesday, August 21, 2018 at 1:30 PM (EST)

The discussion is led by Berit Ness, Assistant Curator for Academic Initiatives at the Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago.

Invite: Museum Without Walls ｜ Tuesday, July 31, 2018 at 1:30 PM (EST)

This Coffee Gathering is led by Joyce Tsai, Curator at the University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art, Clinical Associate Professor at the College of Education, University of Iowa, and Director, Intermedia Research Initiative, University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art.