Join us for a keynote presentation by Elizabeth Chodos, Founder & Director, Institute for Contemporary Art Pittsburgh, followed by a moderated panel discussion with:

• Lisa Dorin, Deputy Director, Williams College Museum of Art
• James McAnally, Artistic and Executive Director, Counterpublic St. Louis
• Harrison Kinnane Smith, artist
• Alisha Wormsley, artist and Assistant Professor of Art at Carnegie Mellon University School of Art

In preparation for the 2027 public opening of its dedicated home in the new Richard King Mellon Hall of Science, ICA Pittsburgh is undertaking a multi-phase creative research project to examine the role of contemporary arts institutions in light of shifting cultural, political, and social landscapes. This public symposium marks an important milestone in this ongoing research: an opportunity to open the process and share findings from an initial series of roundtable discussions and connect with key stakeholders and members of the Pittsburgh cultural community.

How Can We Remake The Museum? An Opening Conversation is a public symposium organized in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Art lecture series and hosted in partnership with the Carnegie Museum of Art. This symposium is made possible with the generous support of The Fine Foundation.

Early Access: Elizabeth Chodos on the Future of the ICA Pittsburgh

In this Q&A, Elizabeth Chodos, Founder & Director of the Institute for Contemporary Art Pittsburgh, offers an advance preview of the ICA Pittsburgh’s next chapter.
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Finding the Carnegie Museum of Art Theatre

The Art Theatre is located on the ground floor of the Carnegie Museum of Art. From the main entrance of the museum, head down the stairs to the right of the reception desk and the theatre will be at the end of the corridor. If you are entering from the parking lot at the rear of the museum, the theatre will be immediately to your right.

About the Panel

James McAnally is a dependent curator, strategic critic, intermittent editor and institution-shaper. McAnally is the Artistic + Executive Director of Counterpublic, a triennial civic exhibition based in St. Louis reimaging the role of art in public life. He is a co-founder and former Executive Director of The Luminary, an expansive platform for art, thought, and action based in St. Louis, MO. McAnally also serves as the editor and co-founder of MARCH: a journal of art & strategy, was the editor and co-founder of Temporary Art Review, an international platform for contemporary art criticism that focused on artist-run and alternative spaces, and is a founding member of Common Field, a national network of independent art spaces and organizers. McAnally has presented exhibitions, talks and lectures at venues such as the Walker Art Center, Kadist Art Foundation, Pulitzer Arts Foundation, The Contemporary, School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA), Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Carnegie Mellon University, Kansas City Art Institute, INCA, Transformer, and Washington University in St. Louis and has served as a Visual Arts panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts, Creative Capital, and numerous others. McAnally’s writing has appeared in publications such as Art in America, Art Journal, Artnet, Hyperallergic, OEI, Terremoto, VICE and The Brooklyn Rail, and his publications are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Smithsonian Museum of American Art, LACMA, the Art Institute of Chicago and Brooklyn Museum. His work has been featured in the New York Times, Guardian, ABC News, Washington Post, and numerous other publications. McAnally is a recipient of the Creative Capital | Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant for Short-Form Writing.

Lisa Dorin is the Deputy Director of the Williams College Museum of Art in Williamstown, MA, where she has served since 2013. At WCMA She leads a unified department comprising the curatorial, engagement, communications and publications team members in developing the museum’s collections priorities, exhibitions, public programs, and teaching and learning initiatives. Dorin has co-chaired an annual course on contemporary curatorial practice in the Williams Graduate Program in the History of Art and has curated numerous exhibitions at WCMA featuring artists such as Beatriz Cortez, Michael Rakowitz, and David Zink Yi as well as multiple collection installations. Her current focus is managing the team in the collaborative programmatic planning for WCMA’s new museum, which is being designed by SO – IL and scheduled to open in 2027. Prior to her appointment at WCMA, Dorin was associated with the Art Institute of Chicago from 2005-2013, where she worked extensively with the new media collection and organized dozens of temporary exhibitions featuring notable artists such as Monica Bonvicini, Richard Hawkins, Hito Steyerl, Danh Vo, and Kara Walker. Dorin graduated from the University of California Santa Cruz with a bachelor’s degree in art history and studio art. She received her master’s degree from Williams College in 2000. Prior to joining the staff of the AIC, Dorin was an assistant curator at the Williams College Museum of Art.

Harrison Kinnane Smith (b. 1997, Pittsburgh, PA) is an artist based in Los Angeles. His collaborative work and site-specific interventions critique public institutions and financial systems. He has been published by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and included in exhibitions at the François Ghebaly and Melrose Botanical Garden galleries in LA; Romance Gallery and the Mattress Factory Museum in Pittsburgh; and SculptureCenter, NYC. Smith is a co-founder of PlaceHolder Gallery, LA. He holds a BA from Yale University and an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Alisha B Wormsley (Pittsburgh, PA, USA) is an interdisciplinary artist and cultural producer. Wormsley’s work is dedicated to the expansion and creation of time and space and the repair and rematriation of Black/Indigenous Matriarch. Her main concern is to transform the world to a place where people can live. Recent exhibitions, projects and public art commissions include; 2023 Creative Time open call with collaborator Suzanne Kite, integrating media, public space, and public interaction. Kite and Wormsley’s project, Cosmologyscape, design invitations for rest and reimagination rooted in practices of Afro-Futurism and Indigenous Protocol. Wormsley received a commission for the new International Arrivals Corridor at the Pittsburgh International Airport, and a solo exhibition at CUE Arts Foundation in NYC. Wormsley’s ongoing project, There Are Black People In The Future exhibited at the Oakland Museum, VCUArts Qatar, Speed Museum, Southbank Arts London,this summer at the SFO Airport, gives mini-grants to open up discourse around displacement and gentrification and was awarded a fellowship with Monument Lab. In 2019, Wormsley launched an art residency for Black artists who m/other called Sibyls Shrine that supports over 150 artists. Her newest film in process, Children of NAN: A Survival Guide, a film that presents tutorials and survival skills for future Black womxn, while exploring their relationship to ritual, craft, and the natural world won an Anonymous was a Woman NYFA Award, a Pittsburgh Foundation grant and the Sundance Interdisciplinary grant. She is a 2022 Guggenheim Fellow in Fine Arts, an Awardee the Carol Brown Achievement award among others. Wormsley has an MFA in Film and Video from Bard College and is an Assistant Professor of Art in the area of Social Practice at Carnegie Mellon University.