The ICA Pittsburgh is pleased to announce a public symposium organized in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Art lecture series and hosted in partnership with the Carnegie Museum of Art. In preparation for the 2027 public opening of its dedicated home in the new Richard King Mellon Hall of Sciences, ICA Pittsburgh is undertaking a multi-phase creative research project to examine the role of contemporary arts institutions in light of shifting cultural, political, and social landscapes, and to survey the models and practices best suited to navigate this novel terrain. This convening marks an important milestone in this ongoing research: an opportunity to open the process and share findings from an initial series of roundtable discussions with institutional directors, curators, artists, scholars, educators, and other practitioners, as well as to lay the foundation for subsequent phases by connecting ICA Pittsburgh’s research partners in dialogue with key stakeholders and members of the Pittsburgh cultural community.

This symposium is made possible with generous support from The Fine Foundation

Elizabeth Chodos is the director of the Institute for Contemporary Art Pittsburgh at Carnegie Mellon. She arrived at the university in fall 2017 from Ox-Bow, the school of art and artists’ residency in Saugatuck, Michigan, where she served as Executive and Creative Director. Chodos has focused her career on promoting the work of contemporary artists through residencies, higher education, exhibitions, and public programming. She is the curator of Dara Birnbaum: Journey in 2022; Spirits Roaming on the Earth, the first major monographic survey on Jacolby Satterwhite in 2021; the survey, Andrea Zittel: An Institute of Investigative Living in 2019; and the thematic exhibition Paradox: The Body in the Age of AI in 2018. In addition to her leadership of ICA Pittsburgh, Chodos is an Associate Professor of Curatorial Practice at the Carnegie Mellon University School of Art, as well as CMU’s Johnson Family Public Art Curator.

Lisa Dorin is the Deputy Director of the Williams College Museum of Art in Williamstown, MA, where she has served since 2013.  Dorin has has curated numerous exhibitions at WCMA featuring artists such as Beatriz Cortez, Michael Rakowitz, and David Zink Yi as well as multiple collection installations. Her current focus is managing the team in the collaborative programmatic planning for WCMA’s new museum, which is being designed by SO – IL and scheduled to open in 2027.

Prior to her appointment at WCMA, Dorin was associated with the Art Institute of Chicago from 2005-2013, where she worked extensively with the new media collection and organized dozens of temporary exhibitions featuring notable artists such as Monica Bonvicini, Richard Hawkins, Hito Steyerl, Danh Vo, and Kara Walker. 

Dorin graduated from the University of California Santa Cruz with a bachelor’s degree in art history and studio art. She received her master’s degree from Williams College in 2000. Prior to joining the staff of the AIC, Dorin was an assistant curator at the Williams College Museum of Art.

James McAnally is a dependent curator, strategic critic, intermittent editor and institution-shaper. 

McAnally is the Artistic + Executive Director of Counterpublic, a triennial civic exhibition based in St. Louis reimagining the role of art in public life. He is a co-founder and former Executive Director of The Luminary, an expansive platform for art, thought, and action based in St. Louis, MO. McAnally also serves as the editor and co-founder of MARCH: a journal of art & strategy, was the editor and co-founder of Temporary Art Review, an international platform for contemporary art criticism that focused on artist-run and alternative spaces, and is a founding member of Common Field, a national network of independent art spaces and organizers.

McAnally’s writing has appeared in publications such as Art in America, Art Journal, Artnet, Hyperallergic, OEI, Terremoto, VICE and The Brooklyn Rail, and his publications are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Smithsonian Museum of American Art, LACMA, the Art Institute of Chicago and Brooklyn Museum. His work has been featured in the New York Times, Guardian, ABC News, Washington Post, and numerous other publications. McAnally is a recipient of the Creative Capital | Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant for Short-Form Writing.

Harrison Kinnane Smith (b. 1997, Pittsburgh, PA) is an artist based in Los Angeles. His collaborative work and site-specific interventions critique public institutions and financial systems. He has been published by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and included in exhibitions at the François Ghebaly and Melrose Botanical Garden galleries in LA;  Romance Gallery and the Mattress Factory Museum in Pittsburgh; and SculptureCenter, NYC. Smith is a Co-Founder of PlaceHolder Gallery, LA and Affiliated Faculty and Co-Director of the Morning Star Research Center for the Afterlife of Slavery. He holds a BA from Yale University and an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Alisha B Wormsley (Pittsburgh, PA, USA) is an interdisciplinary artist and cultural producer. Wormsley’s work is dedicated to the expansion and creation of time and space and the repair and rematriation of Black/Indigenous Matriarchs. Her main concern is to transform the world to a place where people can live.  

Recent exhibitions, projects and public art commissions include; 2023 Creative Time open call with collaborator Suzanne Kite, integrating media, public space, and public interaction. Kite and Wormsley’s project, Cosmologyscape, designs invitations for rest and reimagination rooted in practices of Afro-Futurism and Indigenous Protocol. Wormsley received a  commission for the new International Arrivals Corridor at the Pittsburgh International Airport,  and a solo exhibition at CUE Arts Foundation in NYC. Wormsley’s ongoing project,  There Are Black People In The Future exhibited at the Oakland Museum, VCUArts Qatar, Speed Museum, Southbank Arts London, this summer at the SFO Airport, gives mini-grants to open up discourse around displacement and gentrification and was awarded a fellowship with Monument Lab. In 2019, Wormsley launched an art residency for Black artists who m/other called Sibyls Shrine that supports over 150 artists.  Her newest film in process, Children of NAN: A Survival Guide, a film that presents tutorials and survival skills for future Black womxn, while exploring their relationship to ritual, craft, and the natural world won an Anonymous was a Woman NYFA Award, a Pittsburgh Foundation grant and the Sundance Interdisciplinary grant.  She is a 2022 Guggenheim Fellow in Fine Arts, an Awardee the Carol Brown Achievement award among others.  Wormsley has an MFA in Film and Video from Bard College and is an Assistant Professor of Art in the area of Social Practice at Carnegie Mellon University.