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Imagining Museums: The Next 150 Years of Stewarding Art at WellesleyFriday, March 27, 2026 - 9:30am to 4:30pmDavis Museum Lobby & Galleries, Collins CinemaIn this hybrid, bilingual symposium hosted by the Davis Museum at Wellesley College in English and French, students, scholars, and alumni around the world will extend Wellesley’s legacy of learning directly from works of art. Held in Tishman Commons and live-streamed, the symposium will propose new strategies for the ethical stewardship of artworks collected by the College since 1875. In collaboration with the Wellesley Club of France, Centre International de Recherches André Malraux, Pluralism Initiative, French House, and French, Francophone, and Italian Studies Department, the symposium pays special attention to the influence of novelist, politician, and cultural critic André Malraux on Wellesley’s museum in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Register here to attend in person: Day One, March 26, 2026
Register here to attend in person: Day Two, March 27, 2026
Register here to attend panels via livestream.
Learn more about the event here: Imagining Museums Symposium 2026
This symposium is supported by the Mary Hammond Norton ‘54 Endowed Fund for the Davis Museum and co-sponsored by the Pluralism Initiative, French House, Art Department, Religion Department, Suzy Newhouse Center for the Humanities, and Africana Studies.
9:30 AM -10:00 AM: Coffee, Tishman Commons
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM: Session One: What’s in a Word?: Repatriation, in collaboration with the Pluralism Initiative, Tishman Commons
Chair: Amanda Gilvin, Davis Museum at Wellesley College
Panelists:
Erica P. Jones, The Fowler Museum at UCLA
Kwasi Ampene, Tufts University
Ashley Thompson, SOAS-University of London
Sokunthyda Long, Yale University
11:30 AM - 1:00 PM: Lunch Break
1:00 PM - 2:30 PM: Session Two: Gandharan Arts at the Davis, in collaboration with the Art Department, Tishman Commons
Chair: Yuhua Ding, Davis Museum at Wellesley College
Panelists:
Angela Chang, Harvard Art Museums
Liza Oliver, Art Department, Wellesley College
Dessislava Vendova, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
2:30 PM - 3:00 PM: Closing remarks, Tishman Commons
Speaker: Amanda Gilvin, Davis Museum at Wellesley College
3:30 PM - 4:30 PM: Tours and Discussions in the Galleries, Davis Museum
Left: Gallery, Wellesley College Farnsworth Art Museum, undated, Courtesy of Wellesley College Archives; Right: Dorothy Johnston Towne Gallery, Davis Museum at Wellesley College 2016, Courtesy of the Davis Museum at Wellesley College.
Friday, March 27, 2026 -
9:30am to 4:30pm
Davis Museum Lobby & Galleries, Collins Cinema
In this hybrid, bilingual symposium hosted by the Davis Museum at Wellesley College in English and French, students, scholars, and alumni around the world will extend Wellesley’s legacy of learning directly from works of art. Held in Tishman Commons and live-streamed, the symposium will propose new strategies for the ethical stewardship of artworks collected by the College since 1875. In collaboration with the Wellesley Club of France, Centre International de Recherches André Malraux, Pluralism Initiative, French House, and French, Francophone, and Italian Studies Department, the symposium pays special attention to the influence of novelist, politician, and cultural critic André Malraux on Wellesley’s museum in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Register here to attend in person: Day One, March 26, 2026
Register here to attend in person: Day Two, March 27, 2026
Register here to attend panels via livestream.
Learn more about the event here: Imagining Museums Symposium 2026
This symposium is supported by the Mary Hammond Norton ‘54 Endowed Fund for the Davis Museum and co-sponsored by the Pluralism Initiative, French House, Art Department, Religion Department, Suzy Newhouse Center for the Humanities, and Africana Studies.
9:30 AM -10:00 AM: Coffee, Tishman Commons
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM: Session One: What’s in a Word?: Repatriation, in collaboration with the Pluralism Initiative, Tishman Commons
Chair: Amanda Gilvin, Davis Museum at Wellesley College
Panelists:
Erica P. Jones, The Fowler Museum at UCLA
Kwasi Ampene, Tufts University
Ashley Thompson, SOAS-University of London
Sokunthyda Long, Yale University
11:30 AM - 1:00 PM: Lunch Break
1:00 PM - 2:30 PM: Session Two: Gandharan Arts at the Davis, in collaboration with the Art Department, Tishman Commons
Chair: Yuhua Ding, Davis Museum at Wellesley College
Panelists:
Angela Chang, Harvard Art Museums
Liza Oliver, Art Department, Wellesley College
Dessislava Vendova, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
2:30 PM - 3:00 PM: Closing remarks, Tishman Commons
Speaker: Amanda Gilvin, Davis Museum at Wellesley College
3:30 PM - 4:30 PM: Tours and Discussions in the Galleries, Davis Museum
Left: Gallery, Wellesley College Farnsworth Art Museum, undated, Courtesy of Wellesley College Archives; Right: Dorothy Johnston Towne Gallery, Davis Museum at Wellesley College 2016, Courtesy of the Davis Museum at Wellesley College.