Research libraries stage exhibitions that resist silence, amplify marginalized voices and invite new forms of public dialogue. Far from neutral, library exhibitions are increasingly important as pedagogical, political and cultural interventions. This panel will explore how exhibitions rooted in library collections and curatorial practice function as acts of resistance–whether to institutional inertia, political censorship or canonical narratives.
Exhibiting Resistance: Experiential Learning through Archival Curation
Speaker: Sam Regal This paper presents a student internship program at a large public research university, where an undergraduate curated an exhibition from archival protest ephemera. The project connected current student activism with institutional legacies of resistance, transforming the library into a site of dialogue between past and present struggles.
Curation in Academic Art Libraries: Empowering Students and Promoting New Forms of Storytelling
Speaker: Anaïs Grateau The paper considers how student-led exhibitions resist static art-historical narratives and challenge the notion of art libraries as apolitical spaces. Through case studies of collaborative curatorial projects, the paper highlights exhibitions-as-pedagogy, positioning students as active meaning-makers who shape interpretive frameworks for diverse audiences.
I Object: Activist History, Library Exhibitions and Art
Speakers: Courtney Hunt and Leticia Wiggins This paper presents a case study of an exhibition that merged archival collections with contemporary feminist art to foreground the activist history of an R1 university campus. Staged amid state-level restrictions on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, the project demonstrates how art libraries can serve as sites of cultural resistance under conditions of political constraint.
Widening the Arc: Drawing on the Full Spectrum of Library Collections
Speaker: Jamie Vander Broek This paper examines an exhibition that resisted the conventional privileging of “treasures” by displaying scientific works alongside mass-produced children’s books, and by inviting visitors to handle materials directly. By dismantling the hierarchy between special and circulating collections, the project demonstrates how library exhibitions can resist entrenched curatorial orthodoxies and reframe everyday materials as vital sources of public knowledge.
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