Skip to main content
July 19, 2022

A call to bravery: in new op-ed UMMA Director outlines five lessons for more courageous museums

Photo by Mark Gjukich

In a new op-ed published this week by ArtNet News, UMMA Director Christina Olsen makes the case that art museums across the country need to be braver if they truly wish to serve and be relevant to their visitors and communities.

Campus museums, Olsen argues, have exemplified this needed courage in recent years. In the piece, she calls more broadly for museums to take lessons from those examples and reinvent what it means to be an art museum in today’s world.

Olsen outlines five methods campus museums have used to reassert their relevance to the public and reinvigorate meaningful connections to their communities. You can read the five lessons, and learn about examples from each on ArtNet News.

Read Full Article

More from UMMA

New Exhibition at UMMA Unites Visionaries Carmen Herrera and Leon Polk Smith for First Time
Jul 15, 2025
Groundbreaking exhibition celebrates decades-long friendship and dialogue between two trailblazers of geometric abstraction
Holly Bass, "American Woman", 2021, Digital Video Installation. Image Courtesy of the Artist
Roman Witt Artist Residency awarded to Holly Bass by U-M Stamps School of Art & Design and the University of Michigan Museum of Art
Jun 10, 2025
Bass to premier Civilities in 2026 - a bold and inventive exploration of American identity for the United States Semiquincentennial.
UMMA To Open First Solo Museum Exhibition by Artist Jarod Lew
Dec 18, 2024
Opening February 1, 2025, this powerful exhibition brings forward personal and intergenerational stories of identity, family memory, and diaspora within the Asian American experience.