Dear Friends,

In these challenging times, I’m heartened to look back on a year of programming at Tufts University Art Galleries that brought us together—to share space, perspectives, ideas—and to learn from one another. Thank you for joining us in making this year such a success!

In 2023, TUAG presented exhibitions that expanded our thinking about the museum as a space of inquiry and continual learning—from probing the ethical frameworks of institutional collecting in re:imagining collections, to exploring art as activism and global Indigeneity in Véxoa: We Know, to broadening ideas about artmaking and nature with Elizabeth James Perry: Double Arrows.

But learning does not stop at our exhibitions:

Re:imagining collections is part of a larger TUAG project to reassess Tufts’ collecting practices. We’ve used our collection as a teaching tool at every level, from case studies in data justice with Tufts’ Data Intensive Studies Center and Museum Studies program to the formation of a new donor group—the TUAG Acquisition Committee (TAC)—dedicated to bringing a wider range of voices and representation into the Tufts permanent collection. To that end, we acquired contemporary works by David Antonio Cruz, Dell Hamilton, Annette Lemieux, Margaret Vendryes, and Yu-Wen Wu this year through the generosity of our community and TAC.

Véxoa—a groundbreaking survey of Brazilian Indigenous art today—will also continue (thanks to the Terra Foundation for American Art) through a faculty-driven convening this spring with Indigenous curators and artists from across the Americas. This collaborative project in shared learning around new museological frameworks has deeply informed the ideas, approaches and teaching around Indigenous collections for our entire university community.

And beyond our work on campus, TUAG is a proud partner with the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts’ Regional Regranting Program through our Collective Futures Fund—an artist-direct grant program that supports experimental and community-centric artmaking in the Greater Boston area. In 2023, we funded 20 artists and collectives for projects that ranged from public workshops and mobile massage carts in Boston’s Chinatown to concrete installations engaging with Boston’s Brutalist architectural history.

This spring, we’re excited to delve further into Boston’s past with two exhibitions at our SMFA at Tufts / Boston galleries: the critically acclaimed Christian Walker: The Profane and the Poignant and As the World Burns: Queer Photography and Nightlife in Boston. In Medford, Kenneth Tam: Standing in Soft Formation extends this exploration into photography, performance, and identity through two recent video installations.

We look forward to seeing you in the galleries in 2024 and encourage you to consider TUAG’s vital work as you make your year-end gift plans.

You can support our programs here.

Wishing you a peaceful holiday season and happy New Year!

Yours, Dina