Summer Think Tank
For its third iteration, the 2025 Summer Think Tank explores the role of performance art within our understanding and stewardship of American art at large. Taking a wide view of our contemporary arts ecology, the think tank invites participants to contemplate performance in relation to practices of archiving, documentation, exhibition making, collecting, and pedagogy as they take place within the museums, universities, galleries, and other alternative spaces.
This year, we have invited six of the leading curators, artists, and scholars working in performance to serve as guest curators. Each curator is assigned a week of the think tank and is responsible for assembling a cohort of interlocutors and cultivating a specific prompt or question to guide their conversations. All of the conversations that unfold during the think tank are recorded and eventually published as part of our audio archive, which will be launched this spring.
For the first time since its inception, the 2025 Summer Think Tank will also feature a series of public programs, consisting of live performances, film screenings, and workshops developed and presented by the participants, which will provide the Colby Museum’s audiences with a unique opportunity to learn from the think tank as it’s happening. For details on the public programs, visit our events page.
2025 Participants
Guest Curators
Dell Marie Hamilton, artist, writer, curator; interim director of the Cooper Gallery at Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African & African American Research
Hannah Haynes, associate professor of Interdisciplinary Studies, MCLA; 2025–26 LIAA Fellow
Cynthia Post Hunt, artist and curator of performance, Crystal Bridges & the Momentary
Kristin Juarez, PhD, senior research specialist, Getty Research Institute
Ed Patuto, director for audience engagement, The Broad Museum
David Thomson, interdisciplinary performing artist
Limor Tomer, vice president of programming and production, Segerstrom Center for the Arts
Fellows
Marilyn Arsem, artist
Tiffany E. Barber, assistant professor of African American Art, UCLA
Sidra Bell, artist
John Bordel, artist liaison, Performance Art Museum
AB Brown, assistant professor, Performance, Theater and Dance, Colby College
The Last Physician of Images (Ernest A. Bryant III), artist and critic; 2025-26 LIAA Fellow
Rashida Bumbray, curator and choreographer
Brad Burgess, artist and artistic director, The Living Theatre
Sandra L. Burton, chair of dance department, Williams College
Rachel Chanoff, founding director, The Office
Elizabeth Cline, executive director, Wild Up
Angela Counts, playwright and filmmaker
Helga Davis, artist
LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, poet and artist
Rosalie Doubal, senior curator, international art (Performance & Participation), Tate Modern
Kristy Edmunds, director, MASS MoCA
Zachary Fabri, artist
Rachel Fine, executive director, Yale Schwarzman Center
Peggy Fogelman, director, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Danielle Forest, director, Pace Gallery
Marjani Forté-Saunders, artist, curator, and writer
Martin Gonzales, artist
Jonathan González, artist
Rujeko Hockley, associate curator, Whitney Museum of American Art
Avery Willis Hoffman, founder & artistic director of Avery Productions
Judy Hussie-Taylor, executive director, Danspace Project
Sarah Jones, chief of staff, Gagosian Gallery
Darin Klein, associate director of events and programs, The Broad
Autumn Knight, artist
Bronwyn Lace, artist and co-founder, The Centre for the Less Good Idea
Teresa McKinney, Diamond Family Director of the Arts, Colby College
Edgar Miramontes, executive and artistic director, Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA
Seta Morton, program director & associate curator, Danspace Project
Dorothy Moss, founding director, The Hung Liu Estate
Jennifer Harrison Newman, associate artistic director, Yale Schwarzman Center
Valerie Cassel Oliver, curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
Cori Olinghouse, artist, archivist, and curator
taisha paggett, artist and choreographer
Will Rawls, artist, choreographer, and associate professor of dance, UCLA
Guy Robertson, curator and co-director, Mahler & LeWitt Studios
Lauren Rosati, associate curator, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Legacy Russell, executive director & chief curator, The Kitchen; 2024-25 LIAA Fellow
Russell Salmon, director of public programming, Hauser & Wirth
Gwynn Shanks, assistant professor, Performance, Theater and Dance, Colby College
Kyera Singleton, executive director, The Royall House and Slave Quarters
Kwabena Slaughter, producer, artist, and PhD candidate at George Washington University
Luke Stewart, artist
Jackie Terrassa, Carolyn Muzzy Director, Colby College Museum of Art
Julie Tolentino, artist
Xavier Tavera, artist
Nat Trotman, curator of performance and media, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Masha Turchinsky, director, Hudson River Museum
Samuel Vasquez, director, Performance Art Museum
Anna Martine Whitehead, artist and writer
Tara Aisha Willis, curator, writer, and artist