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Advancing Change—Shaping Tomorrow Through Art Foundations
Join us for Advancing Change: Shaping Tomorrow Through Art Foundations, a free virtual summit that will bring together art leaders from across the country to explore how art foundations support artists and art professionals from underrepresented communities. The panel will examine the function of foundations and art organizations, and how panelists’ personal experiences with them have shaped their profession.
This annual summit offers valuable insight from alumni of the Romare Bearden Graduate Museum Fellowship at the Saint Louis Art Museum. The Romare Bearden Graduate Museum Fellowship is aimed at advancing the careers of early museum professionals.
About the summit
The Saint Louis Art Museum launched Advancing Change in 2021. The annual summit is devoted to addressing best practices for nurturing diverse talent within museums and cultural institutions. This program is inspired by more than 30 years of SLAM’s Romare Bearden Graduate Museum Fellowship, one of the nation’s longest-running postgraduate training opportunities for museum professionals from historically underrepresented populations.
About the speakers
Diedra Harris-Kelley (codirector of the Romare Bearden Foundation) is a formally trained painter and the niece of Nanette Rohan Bearden. She currently teaches a seminar course at Barnard College and has taught studio art at NYU, at Parsons Studio Program, and for alternative high school and elementary school programs. She also conducts professional development workshops and lectures on art. Along with Romare Bearden Foundation codirector Johanne Bryant Reid, she has led a successful run of exhibitions, publications, educational programs, and celebratory programs around the life and art of Romare Bearden.
Harris-Kelley earned a master’s of fine arts from the University of Michigan. She was a member of the curatorial team of Jazz at Lincoln Center (2009–12); and is the author of “Revisiting Romare Bearden’s Art of Improvisation,” published in Uptown Conversation: The New Jazz Studies (Columbia University, 2004); and “My Life in Movement: Inheriting the Dancing Body” (Scholar & Feminist Online, Issue 19.1, Summer 2023).
Diedra Harris-Kelley, the codirector of the Romare Bearden Foundation
Jordia Benjamin (2014–2015 Romare Bearden Fellow) has dedicated her career to advancing the role of the arts as a catalyst for community transformation, equity, and collective memory. Benjamin currently serves on the Board of the Maine Arts Commission. As the dynamic executive director of Indigo Arts Alliance, Benjamin has stewarded million-dollar budgets, led teams through periods of rapid growth and change, and forged lasting partnerships across disciplines and geographies. A seasoned arts administrator with over 15 years of visionary leadership in the cultural sector, Benjamin has led a cultural organization; served on a multitude of local and national boards; headed museum departments; and developed nationally and internationally recognized programs that have shaped policy and centers’ inclusion access and the power of storytelling. Whether building residency programs for underrepresented artists, reimagining museum collections through a decolonial lens, or mentoring the next generation of cultural workers, Benjamin leads with integrity, purpose, and vision.
Rehema Barber-Williams (2001–2002 Romare Bearden Fellow) is director of curatorial affairs at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts (KIA), where she oversees a rotating schedule of 8–12 exhibitions annually and acquisitions for the museum’s permanent collection. Since joining KIA, she has curated numerous exhibitions, including Africa Imagined: Reflections on Modern & Contemporary Art; Todd Gray: Crossing the Waters of Space, Time, and History; Unmasking Masculinity for the 21st Century (co-curator); and Leo Villareal: Interstellar. Current curatorial projects include For the People, By the People: America at 250, and Statement Pieces: Fashioning the Self & Society, which explore questions of identity, representation, technology, and social history through modern and contemporary art.
Previously, Barber-Williams held positions at Eastern Illinois University, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and the University of Memphis. She has participated in leadership and curatorial programs through the Center for Curatorial Leadership, Getty Leadership Institute, and Japan Foundation. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications, and in 2024 she edited 101 Legendary Selections from the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts (Hirmer Verlag), the museum’s first collection handbook.
Courtney Baxter-Annis (2015–2016 Romare Bearden Fellow) is currently the supervisor of visitor education and engagement at the Obama Presidential Center. She is a museum educator and public historian focused on connecting communities of all ages with quality history and art interpretation. In the past, she served from 2020–25 as the manager of youth and family programs at the Missouri History Museum, where she managed a number of public programs and also created community resources. Before that, she was the education manager at Peoria PlayHouse Children’s Museum. She is also an independent consultant for history textbooks. She earned her bachelor of arts degree in history with a sociology minor from University of Illinois Springfield. Following that she earned her master of arts degree in public history at Loyola University Chicago.
Daniella Statia (2025–2027 Romare Bearden Fellow) received her bachelor of arts in art history and Spanish studies with a minor in museum studies from the University of Delaware in 2022. During her time, she interned at the Delaware Historical Society in the education department and helped curate the university’s online collection, Black Portrait Photography Collection. Statia also holds a master of arts in art history with a focus on Blackness and Indigeneity in modern art of the Americas. As a graduate, she worked as a teacher’s assistant and interned at the Beauregard-Keyes Historic House.
