Curator at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Michelle Joan Wilkinson will be in conversation with Krannert Art Museum Senior Curator Allyson Purpura and Professor Irvin Hunt, Department of English (University of Illinois Urbana Champaign) about the process of putting together exhibitions and the kinds of stories they tell. Terri Weissman, curator of Another Place: Storymaking the Entangled Prairie will moderate.
Presented in conjunction with the Another Place: Storymaking in the Entangled Prairie exhibition.
ABOUT THE CURATOR
Michelle Joan Wilkinson is a curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), where she is expanding the museum’s collections in architecture and design. She co-curated the inaugural exhibitions A Century in the Making: Building the National Museum of African American History and Culture and A Changing America: 1968 and Beyond. Wilkinson also served as a lead co-curator for Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial at the Cooper Hewitt, which examined how design shapes the physical and emotional realities of “home” across the U.S., its territories, and Tribal Nations. Prior to joining NMAAHC, she was Director of Collections and Exhibitions at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture, and held positions at the National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Studio Museum in Harlem. Her work illuminates the often-invisible histories of design, architecture, and space in African American life, by thinking through the way built environments reflect identity, preserve memory, and shape experiences of belonging.
*Parking nearby is free after 5 pm and on weekends.* Part of the School of Art & Design Visitors series.
Image: Detail of Brooke C. White, Oceans of Grasses series, 2025.
Krannert Art Museum acknowledges support from the Illinois Arts Council.
