The American Alliance of Museums (AAM), has announced the keynote speakers for this year’s AAM Annual Meeting & MuseumExpo (AAM 2024), which is taking place from 16 to 19 May in Baltimore, US.
The keynote panel at AAM 2024 is titled Wired for the Arts: Revitalizing Society through Museum Engagement and is supported by .art. This session will explore the close relationship between societal health and arts and culture and will consider how museums may be effective platforms for this integration.
Acclaimed panellists
The AAM 2024 keynote speakers are:
- Renée Fleming. Fleming is one of the most celebrated vocalists of our time and has received five Grammy awards and the US National Medal of Arts. She has sung in some of the most prestigious opera houses and concert venues on the planet and has performed at historic occasions such as the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony and the Super Bowl. Fleming is a committed advocate for research at the intersection of arts and health and spearheaded the first long-term partnership between The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the National Institutes of Health. She is a founding advisor of UCSF’s Sound Health Network.
- Dr Maria Rosario Jackson. Jackson is chair of the National Endowment for the Arts and is the the first African American and the first Mexican American woman to hold this position. She has spent over 25 years studying and promoting arts, culture, and design as vital components of healthy communities. Her work combines social science and arts and humanities approaches to holistic community regeneration, systemic transformation, the dynamics of race and ethnicity, and the function of arts and culture in communities.
- Terri Lee Freeman. Freeman is president of The Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture (The Lewis Museum). Together with staff and the board, she has created a five-year strategic plan to refurbish the museum’s permanent history exhibition and increase visitors, membership, financing support, and community outreach. She aims to relate history to current events and strengthen the museum’s ties to Maryland’s diverse and vibrant communities. Freeman was previously executive director of The Lewis Museum, and president of the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee.
- Susan Magsamen. Magamen is the founder and executive director of the International Arts + Mind Lab, Center for Applied Neuroaesthetics, Pedersen Brain Science Institute at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Her research explores the connection between neuroscience and the arts, as well as how our unique response to aesthetic stimuli might enhance human potential. Magsamen created the Impact Thinking model, an evidence-based research strategy that accelerates how we use the arts to solve challenges in health, well-being, and education.
She is an assistant professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins and co-director of the NeuroArts Blueprint project in collaboration with the Aspen Institute, the creator of Curiosityville and Curiosity Kits, and an acclaimed author. Her most recent book is Your Brain On Art: How the Arts Transform Us, authored with Ivy Ross, vice president of Google Hardware.
The full schedule for AAM 2024 is now available.
The American Alliance of Museums (AAM) recently announced that Marilyn Jackson has been appointed as its next president and CEO, and will step into the role on 22 April 2024.
