Expanding the Stories We Tell

We love to share the captivating stories of art with you at the Milwaukee Art Museum. Kantara Souffrant, PhD, senior director of community dialogue and adult programs, details a new storytelling initiative we launched with the exhibition On Site: Derrick Adams: Our Time Together, installed on the East End.

The art we care for and feature at the Milwaukee Art Museum holds countless stories. One work alone can relate numerous tales and elicit a joyful outburst from one person while inspiring quiet contemplation in another. I love that I’m a part of nurturing, protecting, and celebrating these many stories and experiences. Recently, we’ve focused on what we refer to as “audience-centered storytelling.” We implemented this exciting initiative with the exhibition On Site: Derrick Adams: Our Time Together.

What is “audience-centered storytelling”?

I like a term that defines itself. “Audience-centered storytelling” (ACS) centers you, our audience, encompassing a range of identities and interests, in the stories we share. We have partnered with area organizations and community members to help us identify and develop alternative ways to look at and understand the art. ACS broadens the opportunities to connect with art and our fellow humans while elevating those stories most relevant to our Milwaukee community.

ACS and Our Time Together

In 2022, our ACS work with the exhibition On Site: Derrick Adams: Our Time Together began, with a grant awarded by the Mellon Foundation. We met with elders in Milwaukee’s Black arts community, teens in our internship programs, and members of the Museum’s Community Advisory Group. Through these conversations, we discovered a shared interest in knowing more about the artist, the travel book from the 1930s that inspired the mural, and the individuals and Black-owned businesses featured in the archival photographs. A cross-departmental team produced materials for visitors to learn about these topics.

When you visit this exhibition today, you can explore the mural with an audio guide featuring the artist discussing his artwork and community members bringing deeply personal perspectives to the photographs. Providing stories about the joys and trials of living in 1960s Milwaukee are Clayborn Benson, founder of the Wisconsin Black Historical Society/Museum who is pictured as a young man in the mural; Sheila Parrish-Spence, whose father, Clarence Parrish, was the first African American judge in Milwaukee County; Michael Phillips, son of Vel Phillips, the first woman and Black person elected to Milwaukee’s Common Council; and Pamela Jo Sargeant, the youngest person to speak before Milwaukee’s Common Council during the Fair Housing Marches (1967–68). Their voices also form part of the soundscape in the gallery.

You can extend your experience with the self-guided tour “Taking a Ride.” Significant sites located between the Milwaukee Art Museum, Wisconsin Black Historical Society/Museum, and America’s Black Holocaust Museum—where Adams conducted research for his mural—highlight the importance of archives and several trailblazing Black women.

What’s next in audience-centered storytelling?

We’re curious about so many things. And you’ve told us that you are too! Take the Museum’s Haitian Collection. How Milwaukee came to have a collection of 20th-century Haitian art considered among the best in the world frequently gets asked. We are eager to work with Haitian scholars, artists, and community members and Genre: Urban Arts’ Revolutionary Art and Criticism Residency to bring you new perspectives for understanding this collection and Haitian culture. But that’s just one example. There are many stories yet to be told.

Experience all the storytelling initiatives developed for this exhibition at mam.org/derrick-adams.

The Audience-Centered Storytelling initiative is made possible in part by a major grant from the Mellon Foundation.

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Derrick Adams: Our Time Together

East End
Closes May 11, 2025

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