Public programs facilitate dialogue between academics and professionals, informing scholarship and strengthening practice.
Multiple day conferences, year-long colloquia, individual lectures, “conversations” between individuals, hands-on workshops, and Museums at Noon talks featuring our graduate students all contribute to the remarkable richness of MSP offerings.
Video recordings of some MSP lectures are archived for viewing in our Media Gallery.
Lectures
Listening to Object Witnesses: Decolonizing Research in Museum Collections
U-M Museum of Art, Helmut Stern Auditorium 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor, MI, United StatesPresentation by Dr. Margaret M. Bruchac How do Indigenous objects in museum collections speak to those who collect, curate, observe, and claim them? The observable materials and patterns of construction obviously reflect particular ecosystems, cultures, and technologies, but do these objects also retain memories...
Reimagining Detroit’s Museum and Cultural District
Online via ZoomIn its Midtown district, Detroit boasts a concentrated set of high-powered cultural institutions. Clustered around the DIA, they include the Detroit Historical Museum, The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, the Michigan Science Center, and the Detroit Public Library. In recent years,...
Colonial Archives and Decolonial Museology – Panel 1
Online via ZoomIn this series of two webinars, we inquire into the University of Michigan’s archives, museums, visual and living collections to ask how they are implicated in the violent histories of settler colonialism in the United States and US colonialist rule over the Philippines. How...
Colonial Archives and Decolonial Museology – Panel 2
In this series of two webinars, we inquire into the University of Michigan’s archives, museums, visual and living collections to ask how they are implicated in the violent histories of settler colonialism in the United States and US colonialist rule over the Philippines. How...
Terribly Close: Polish Vernacular Artists Face the Holocaust
Online via ZoomPresentation by Erica Lehrer, Concordia University Can inanimate objects store and communicate traumatic memory that cannot be directly expressed? This talk examines 'folk art' made by non-professional Polish artists – many of them village laborers – documenting the German Nazi occupation of Poland and...
Accessibility and Museums: Creating Inclusive Experiences
Online via ZoomOver the past decade, the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) has promoted accessible methods in museum operations from collections management to exhibition design. The UM Museum Studies Program is pleased to share in this important conversation regarding audience engagement with this session on accessibility...
What’s the Object of this Museum? Everyday Resistance at the National Public Housing Museum
U-M Museum of Art, Helmut Stern Auditorium 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor, MI, United StatesPlease join us for a presentation by this year's Museum Studies Program visiting scholar, Lisa Yun Lee, Executive Director, National Public Housing Museum (Chicago) Worker cooperatives to build a solidarity economy, contemporary art that grapples with history and unleashes radical imaginations about our collective futures, everyday...
Africa’s Struggle for its Art: History of a Postcolonial Defeat 1965-1985 – Bénédicte Savoy
University of Michigan Museum of ArtBénédicte Savoy Africa’s Struggle for Its Art: History of a Postcolonial Defeat 1965-1985 April 7 at 5:30 pm, UM Museum of Art (Helmut Stern auditorium) In the wake of postcolonial African independence, African intellectuals and politicians spearheaded a movement to pursue repatriation of artworks...
Working with Contemporary Artists: A Workshop with Ferran Barenblit
Haven Hall, Eldersveld Room 505 S. State Street, Ann Arbor“Art is what makes life more interesting than art,” said French artist Robert Filliou. He was right: working with contemporary artists is one of the most enriching activities that a professional or an organization can undertake. Whether in a museum, other cultural institution, or...
The Arab American National Museum – Past, Present, and Future
University of Michigan Museum of ArtPresentation by Diana Abouali, Director, Arab American National Museum. January 26 at 5:30 pm, UM Museum of Art The Arab American National Museum, located in Dearborn, Michigan, remains the only museum in the country that interprets and presents the history and culture of Arab...
