About this Event
Kick Off Women's History Month with Dr. Tey Marianna Nunn, Director of the Smithsonian's American Women's History Initiative. Dr. Nunn is the first to lead this brand new initiative that seeks to make women more visible and ultimately pave the way for a national American Women’s History Museum. Straddling focus on the arts and history, she has long stood out in the museum world for her efforts to bring diversity and inclusion to the forefront of museum curation, collection, and heritage work.
Nunn will explain why it is so important to uncover and recover American women’s multiplicity of experience. Once a participant in the Smithsonian’s inaugural Latino Museum Studies Program as a student, she will share her path into the leadership of this storied institution and her plans to move women to the center of our national story.
Before Dr. Nunn’s talk, please attend a reception in the Elizabeth D. Rockwell Pavilion at M.D. Anderson Library hosted by UH Libraries, and pop-up exhibit showcasing women’s history in Houston hosted by UH Special Collections. After Dr. Nunn’s remarks, she will be in dialogue with dynamic UH faculty, and will welcome a vibrant engagement with audience members.
This event is sponsored by Sharing Stories from 1977, a flagship project of the Center for Public History. Check out how we are capturing history of the 1977 National Women’s Conference and how you can contribute to this project: sharingstories1977.uh.edu. Additional sponsors are UH Libraries, the Institute for Research on Women, Gender & Sexuality, and the U.S. Latino Digital Humanities Center.
More on Dr. Nunn:
Tey Marianna Nunn is currently the Director of the Smithsonian Institution’s American Women’s History Initiative. In this role she heads up a Smithsonian wide program to amplify the voices, stories, and contributions of women in American history. Previous to this position she spent sixteen years as the Director and Chief Curator of the Art Museum at the National Hispanic Cultural Center (NHCC) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Dr. Nunn also spent nine plus years as the Curator of Contemporary Hispano and Latino collections at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Latin American Studies from the University of New Mexico, where her research focused on Spanish Colonial, Contemporary Latin American, and Chicana/o and Latina/o history and art history.
In addition to numerous articles, she is the author of Sin Nombre: Hispana and Hispano Artists of the New Deal Era (University of New Mexico Press, 2001). Nunn has curated such acclaimed exhibits as Sin Nombre: Hispana and Hispano Artists of the New Deal Era; Cyber Arte: Tradition meets Technology; Flor y Canto: Reflections from Nuevo México; Meso-Americhanics (Maneuvering Mestizaje): The de la Torre Brothers and Border Baroque; Stitching Resistance: The History of Chilean Arpilleras !PAPEL! Pico, Rico y Chico; El Retrato Nuevomexicano Ahora / New Mexican Portraiture Now; The Piñata Exhibit (Sure to be a Smash Hit!). More recently, Nunn curated Luis Tapia: Sculpture as Sanctuary, the first solo exhibition of work by a New Mexican artist ever held at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago. In Fall 2019 she curated El Perú: Art in the Contemporary Past, which opened at the NHCC to international acclaim.
An ardent advocate for artists, Nunn is active in issues concerning Latinos and museums. She has served as a two-term board member—director/ trustee—of national, regional, and local organizations such as the National Museum and Library Services Board (NMLSB/IMLS), American Alliance of Museums (AAM), and the Western States Arts Federation (WESTAF).
A recipient of numerous research fellowships from the Smithsonian Institution and the Bogliasco Foundation, Nunn was voted “Santa Fe Arts Person and Woman of the Year” in 2001. She was awarded the President’s Award by the Women’s Caucus for the Arts of the College Art Association in 2008. In 2014 she was honored by Los Amigos de Arte Popular with the Van Deren Coke award for outstanding contributions to expanding the knowledge of Mexican, Mexican American and Latin American folk art. In 2016, President Barack Obama appointed Dr. Nunn to the National Museum and Library Services Board.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Elizabeth D. Rockwell Pavilion, M.D. Anderson Library, 4333 University Drive, Houston, United States
USD 0.00