The Walters Art Museum (Maryland, USA), as part of its Diversity, Equity, Access, and Inclusion (DEAI) goals, actively seeks community partners to expand the histories and narratives the museum examines by including their perspectives in the galleries alongside museum perspectives. This initiative aims to feature community knowledge and expertise, whether gained through intergenerational learning, lived experiences, religious practice, art making, skilled labor, or cultural values. The initiative will debut with the opening of the new galleries of the Museum’s Asian and Islamic art collections in April 2023. This presentation will discuss five case studies that feature the multiple strategies employed to foreground contemporary perspectives on Asian art with community voices as interpretatives in the galleries. The strategies include: 1) a college advisory group will offer college-age perspectives on the theme of literacy and learning, 2) a kusamono artist will offer an art response to a display of Japanese objects for the theme of pastimes and leisure, 3) a multidisciplinary artist will offer an oral poetic response to issues of gendering and queering expressed in a display of Avalokiteshvara images, 4) a community partner will offer a response on a Korean Buddha image from their multi-pronged perspective as a practicing Buddhist, a Korean diaspora, and a historian of East Asia, and 5) local tea purveyors will present in video format their insights on tea’s capacity to build community in general and their personal journey in building a community in Baltimore through tea.

Authors:
Dany Chan, The Walters Art Museum, United States

About the Presenter(s)
Ms Dany Chan is the curator for exhibitions and special projects at The Walters Art Museum, United States

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