Confronting Difficult Histories in Museums, Archives, and Historic Spaces

Event Details

Recently, conversations reignited around appropriate presentations of so-called “difficult” histories like white supremacy, colonization, and other racial injustices, and how those histories challenge long-standing, narrow, or often inaccurate interpretations. This session dives into how museums and other memory spaces can and must acknowledge and host those difficult conversations and the important histories they can teach. It challenges the idea of them as “difficult” and asks guests to explore why we value some interpretations over others.

This session will be held virtually. A Zoom link will be provided to participants who register at the Eventbrite link above.

George Garner (he/him) earned his M.A. in Museum Studies from the Cooperstown Graduate Program where he gained experience in museum administration, exhibitions, and collections care at such well-known institutions as the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum and the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. He has dedicated his career to exploring how museums and memory spaces can help people make meaning from traumatic histories and use history to work actively toward change today. Since 2012, he has served the Indiana University South Bend Civil Rights Heritage Center, a space that, for thirty years, operated as a segregated city-owned swimming pool.

About the IDEA Learning Series – In partnership with the Indy Arts & Culture Equity Taskforce, the Indy Arts Council is hosting its second year of IDEA (inclusion, diversity, equity, access) Learning Series programming. Indy arts organization CEOs, staff, board members, and teaching artists are welcome to attend for free. More information about this series and additional learning opportunities are here: https://indyarts.org/programs/idea-learning-series/