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.
New Voices and Detroit Museums: From Midtown and Beyond
Today, the city of Detroit is once again taking its place at the heart of the United States’ cultural landscape—as a center of creativity, imagination, artistic production and social activism. Playing a key role in the new-found optimism that is taking root in Detroit...
Less than Perfect exhibition
Kelsey Museum of Archaeology 434 South State Street, Ann Arbor, MILocation: Kelsey Museum of Archaeology In our society, we are taught to strive for and expect perfection. Yet throughout our lives, we learn as much or more from our flaws and failures as we do from our successes. Less Than Perfect celebrates failure and the lessons...
“Less than Perfect” – exhibition opening lecture
U-M Museum of Art, Helmut Stern Auditorium 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor, MI, United StatesSeptember 21, MSP Director and Curator/Professor of Archaeology, Carla Sinopoli, will present an opening lecture about the exhibit that she curated, "Less Than Perfect." The lecture will be held at the UM Museum of Art at 6:00 pm, and a reception will follow at...
Negotiating Slavery? The Politics of Memory and the Transformations of a State Museum in Colombia
University of Michigan Museum of Art, First Floor, Multi-Purpose Room 525 South State Street, Ann Arbor, MI, United StatesIn a context of controversy surrounding the peace talks between the Colombian government and the FARC guerrilla movement, the country’s museums are currently experiencing deep transformations. State museums in particular face the challenge of becoming more democratic and inclusive institutions even as they remain...
Taking a Look in the Mirror: Transformative Change within Museums
U-M Museum of Art, Helmut Stern Auditorium 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor, MI, United StatesLocation: University of Michigan Museum of Art, Helmut Stern Auditorium Museums do not exist in a vacuum. The external environment around museums is in a state of constant change. Yet, it seems as though museums continue to approach diversity and inclusion work through community...
Tactics for the Anthropocene: Not an Alternative
Michigan Theater 603 E. Liberty, Ann Arbor, MILocation: Michigan Theater (603 E. Liberty Street in downtown Ann Arbor) Not An Alternative is a NY-based collective that works at the intersection of art, activism, and critical theory. Its mission is to affect popular understandings of histories, symbols, and institutions through the occupation...
Supporting Youth through Environmental Education: Teaching, Learning, and Design at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens
University of Michigan Museum of Art, First Floor, Multi-Purpose Room 525 South State Street, Ann Arbor, MI, United StatesEfforts to enhance the scientific capacity of youth often target schools and focus on reforming the existing science curriculum. An often overlooked and underestimated venue for science teaching, learning, and design are out-of-school settings. Everyday experiences in these settings can support science learning for...
What if? Demand the Impossible. On Museums and the Struggle for Social Justice
U-M Museum of Art, Helmut Stern Auditorium 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor, MI, United StatesLocation: University of Michigan Museum of Art, Helmut Stern Auditorium What if museums were to acknowledge their complicity with systemic forms of oppression, and commit to a reparations movement as part of a process of truth and reconciliation? What if museum and exhibition programs...
FAILURE:LAB
U-M Museum of Art, Helmut Stern Auditorium 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor, MI, United StatesLocation: University of Michigan Museum of Art, Apse FAILURE:LAB provides a great opportunity to come together with members of your community and crush the stigma of failure. FAILURE:LAB is filled with storytellers and entertainers recounting their most memorable brush with failure. The audience is...
Access and the Archive: The Role of Documents Projects in a Digital Age
University of Michigan Museum of Art, First Floor, Multi-Purpose Room 525 South State Street, Ann Arbor, MI, United StatesThis brown bag will examine my practicum experience working with the Documents Project at the International Center for Art of the Americas (ICAA) at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The ICAA is the research institute arm of the Latin American Art Curatorial Department,...
