Jessica Gerschultz and Cassandra Mesick Braun co-curated Race, Gender, and the “Decorative” in 20th-Century African Art: Reimagining Boundaries for the Spencer Museum of Art in 2017. The exhibition checklist can be viewed here.

In my role as a research assistant for Race, Gender, and the “Decorative”, I examined the significance of the categories “Africa” and “African art” in the context of Chicago world’s fairs and museum exhibitions held from 1893 to 1930. Drawing on this research, I wrote a didactic gallery text, “Sallie Casey Thayer and African Art”, for the exhibition. The text was later published in the SMA’s 2021 online exhibition Art and Activism: 50 Years of Africana Studies at KU.