Reckoning with Institutional History: A Campus Collaboration

In Fall 2022, the Chazen Museum of Art at the University of Wisconsin–Madison featured the temporary exhibition “Sifting & Reckoning: UW–Madison’s History of Exclusion and Resistance.” Organized by the university’s Public History Project (a multi-year initiative founded by the previous Chancellor in response to increased awareness of the Klu Klux Klan’s presence on campus in the 1920s) and curated by Kacie Lucchini Butcher and Taylor Bailey (both of the Public History Project), the exhibition explored the history of “struggle, perseverance, and resistance on campus.” Unlike the Chazen’s typical art-based exhibitions, this one included archival materials, non-art objects, and oral histories and was very text-based. Though the scope of the exhibition may have deviated from our art-based mission, our staff felt it was important as one of the most visible display spaces on campus to devote square footage in our galleries to this important cross-campus initiative. Not only did this project bring in a wider than usual audience across the university, but we found that many units on campus (such as athletics and university housing) used it for professional development for their own staff—a constituency we rarely focus on. This case study examines the role of the university art museum, its responsibility to its campus, and the opportunity museums have to serve as a platform for campus projects.