Studio Museum in Harlem’s Museum Professionals Seminar

In January 2023, I joined the Studio Museum in Harlem’s Museum Professionals Seminar as part of the Winter cohort. The program took place remotely, shaped by the conditions of COVID-19, yet remained deeply rigorous in its engagement with curatorial practice, institutional critique, and public responsibility.

Throughout the seminar, conversations moved across exhibition-making, community engagement, and the evolving role of museums within broader social and political contexts. The structure of the program emphasized dialogue, where learning unfolded collectively through discussion, reflection, and critical exchange. Without the physical presence of exhibition space, attention shifted toward language, toward how ideas are articulated, challenged, and shared.

A key concept that emerged early in the program was the idea of the rhizome, drawn from Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. Rather than a singular or linear path, curatorial work was understood as a multiplicity, shaped by intersecting ideas, disciplines, and experiences. This resonated with the structure of the cohort itself, where each participant contributed to a collective and non-hierarchical exchange of knowledge.

The seminar also foregrounded questions of equity and access. Discussions emphasized that a significant portion of the public does not engage with museums annually, raising critical questions about who institutions serve and how they remain accountable. The idea that museums are sites of both representation and exclusion became central, prompting reflection on how curatorial and institutional decisions shape visibility and participation.

Guest lectures and readings introduced expanded approaches to exhibition-making and interpretation. Presentations on Black visual hermeneutics and genealogy, as well as discussions of double consciousness in relation to photography, situated visual culture within broader historical and social contexts. Artists such as Thomas J Price were discussed as practitioners who disrupt traditional hierarchies of representation through material and narrative strategies, using sculpture and public space to reframe presence and visibility.

Public programming also emerged as a critical site of engagement. Conversations around early childhood education at the National Museum of African American History and Culture emphasized how identity, race, and social understanding are formed at an early age. These approaches highlighted the role of museums as educational spaces that shape how individuals understand themselves and others, extending beyond exhibition into long-term cultural impact.

Across the seminar, recurring questions emerged around care, responsibility, and institutional accountability. What does it mean to create spaces of care within museums? How do institutions validate or exclude certain forms of knowledge? And how can curatorial practice actively work to dismantle systems that marginalize lived experiences? These questions remain unresolved, but they continue to inform my approach to exhibition-making and public engagement.

Key Takeaways

• There is no singular path into curatorial practice; it is shaped through multiplicity, dialogue, and lived experience.

• Museums are sites of both access and exclusion, requiring ongoing accountability to the communities they serve.

• Representation is not neutral; it is constructed through decisions that carry social and political implications.

• Public engagement is not supplementary to exhibitions, but central to how meaning is produced and shared.

• Early education and community-centered programming are critical to shaping long-term relationships with cultural institutions.

• Care is an active practice within museum work, requiring attention to whose voices are included and how they are supported.

• Curatorial work must move beyond visibility to consider how systems of knowledge are structured and who they prioritize.

This experience continues to shape how I think about museums not only as spaces of display, but as sites of responsibility, dialogue, and change.