Description
Founded in 2001, the Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC) supports and promotes the work of museum curators by creating opportunities for networking, collaboration, professional development, and advancement. The AAMC has grown to include over 1300 members from over 400 institutions located in 18 countries worldwide. Its annual conference is the most significant among its efforts to create a dynamic forum for exchange and education, bringing together approximately 400 curators and guests for five days of panels, tours, conversations, and mentoring. The program of the 2020 conference, to take place in Seattle, WA, will notably include sessions on “Curating Indigeneity,” led by Native professionals, and “Latinx is American Art.”
The AAMC has developed a robust program of grant-funded travel fellowships to the conference for junior and mid-level curators from under-resourced institutions, in order to provide professional opportunities to those who are most in need of support. The proposed grant would be Foundation’s fifth in support of this effort (previous grants in 2007, 2011, 2013, 2014, and 2017 total $90,000). At the Foundation’s request, this grant would be distinct from the previous ones in that four fellowships each year for two years will be offered with preference to curators whose work is focused on Native American and Latinx Art. The AAMC has planned a strategy of outreach (outlined in the proposal) to potential fellowship candidates including those who have not previously participated in the annual conference.
The AAMC’s is the only conference where art curators from every discipline and type of institution meet together. The particular effort to attract curators of Native American and Latinx art will support the growing efforts of museums nationally and internationally to address collections according to increasingly clear standards of ethical practice and cultural sensitivity. Fellowship recipients will have the occasion to share their expertise and projects while gaining from the opportunity to network and expand their professional conversations.
The conference experience can be a transformative one, particularly for curators whose home institutions cannot productively nurture outreach and professional development. Given the American Art Program’s increased attention to the support of work in collection of Native American art in particular, the new focus of these important fellowships allows the Foundation to fortify work in this area in a new way.