Kelli Morgan
Prof. Kelli Morgan is dismantling racist practices in art museums
Kelli Morgan is on a
mission to break down exclusionary and racist practices in cultural
institutions once and for all. Morgan is a professor of the practice and
the inaugural director of curatorial studies at Tufts University, where
she’s pioneering the Anti-Racist Curatorial Practice certificate
program.
Morgan,
who holds a Ph.D. in Afro-American studies, has spent decades working
within — and in spite of — systems designed to keep cultural
institutions like art museums white-centric and inaccessible. After a
particularly blatant racist tenure in Indianapolis, Morgan decided to
create a program that first would help BIPOC museum professionals
survive in this world and second begin overhauling the internal
structures of these organizations.
“I
wanted to create a program that actually delineated why that chasm is
there, how it got there in the first place and why it’s getting wider,”
says Morgan. “And subsequently offer strategies of how to navigate the
reality that that chasm presents or produces for museum professionals.”
The
Anti-Racist Curatorial Practice certificate program is a five-course
program primarily targeting museum professionals and educators. In it,
Morgan teaches the history of cultural systems
to illustrate why there is so much exclusion present in these
organizations and gives students real-life tools to handle the
inequities.
“One thing
I tell my students all the time is, you have to build community. Art
museums are very siloed. A lot of times communication is purposefully
convoluted or cut off in between departments,” says Morgan. “You really
have to be an active agent in your own community-building, both inside
the institution and outside the institution.”
Communication
sounds like a simple tool, but transparency can make a significant
difference in exposing issues within institutions in order to tackle
them. Diversity and inclusion have become buzzwords in cultural
institutions in the past few years, but Morgan says much more is
required to achieve a truly equitable space. Museums will need to
diversify their boards of directors, not just in terms of race, but in
class and gender also. Accessibility and community need to be considered
at every turn, including in collections, actively welcoming in
historically marginalized groups.
“You
can’t just hire the Black curator and collect the Black artist and
expect white supremacy exclusionary structures to just go away,” says
Morgan. “Until art museums in particular move away from that fiduciary
model, it’s never going to be completely equitable.”
The
Tufts certificate program began this fall, and Morgan taught one
officially enrolled student this semester. She had many more listening
in. “The issue is, it’s too expensive,” she says.
“If you want a program like this to succeed, you need to fund students.
Particularly from underrepresented backgrounds.”
Until
funding can be raised to sponsor students, or a new pricing structure
is worked out with Tufts, Morgan is encouraging museum professionals and
others interested to unofficially audit the course for free. Students
auditing won’t receive a certificate from the university, but Morgan
will write a letter on official letterhead indicating their completion
of the course.
Morgan has had to navigate discrepancies, like high pricing on a course about inclusivity, constantly throughout her career.
The
desire to keep up with the trend of diversity and create a program
around it is there, but the programs are not always funded or supported
the way they need to be to be truly effective.
Despite
the challenges, Morgan feels positive about the future of the program. A
course like this could grow into a larger graduate program and provide
important resources to students all over the country.
For
now, Morgan hopes it brings positive change to the professionals she’s
working with. “I hope students come away from it feeling sure of
themselves,” she says. “I want them to be able to fight for themselves
and fight for what they believe it.”
ON THE WEB
Read more about Morgan and her work at www.thesemuseumstreets.com