Call for Milstein Exhibition Proposals: 2025-26

Applications are open for Milstein Lobby Exhibition proposals, for works to be installed during the 2025-26 academic year

Link to Application:  https://forms.gle/Em8ASJt7sdwoTmUy9 (Applications welcome from current Barnard affiliates.)

Application due date: February 21, 2025, 11:59 p.m.

Background:

The Cheryl and Philip Milstein Center for Teaching and Learning serves as an academic hub at the heart of the Barnard College campus. Combined, the academic centers and college library create a focal point at the heart of the Barnard campus in which students, staff, and faculty convene, dialogue, and collaborate across departments, disciplines, research methods, and modes of creativity. 

Installations in the Milstein Lobby Exhibition Space provide a visible and accessible opportunity for visitors to understand how researchers and creators in our community are engaging with profound questions in a variety of interactive modes, including 3-D design and fabrication, time-based media, movement and choreography, critical data analysis, self-publication through zines, computational problem-solving, as well as the development and curation of library and archival collections. Exhibitions also function as pedagogical resources that can be used as a course text, immersive learning space, or a starting place for independent research.

The Milstein Lobby Front Gallery provides approximately 40 feet of display space, with two 55-inch display monitors. When necessary, Front Gallery exhibitions extend to the Interior Gallery, which provides an additional 40-foot display wall facing the academic centers.

We seek proposals for exhibitions that:

• introduce innovative and creative interpretations of contemporary topics;
• deepen public understanding of complex themes in an interactive and accessible way; and
• make the research and creative output of Barnard faculty, staff, students, alums, and affiliates visible, highlighting collaboration within and among the Milstein Centers, Barnard Library, and the Archives.

Successful proposals will: 

• reflect an existing partnership between Barnard faculty, staff, and students (collaboration can include a course engagement but is not required);
• include community partnerships and/or plans for community outreach;
• highlight affiliated library and/or archival collections as opportunities for further research, or partnerships with the Library, including acquisition of new materials for library and archival collections;
• make visible the intellectual output and experiences of people who have been historically marginalized due to race, class, disability, gender, age, language, indigeneity, citizenship status, and other categories of exclusion.

Special consideration will be given to proposals that align with the Zora Neale Hurston & “One Hundred Years of Black Women at Barnard” anniversary programming.