The Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University announced 11 new acquisitions to its permanent collection. Expanding on the museum’s mission to amplify the voices of underrepresented communities, all of the artworks acquired this year were by women artists, Indigenous artists, and artists of color.
Among the acquisitions is the work by Kirsten Leenaars:
Kirsten Leenaars, The Broadcast (2019)
This community-based project enlisted the help of young participants from the greater Lansing area. Made in close collaboration between Dutch artist Kirsten Leenaars and the participants, video work explores vocally expressive platforms—interviews, show-and-tell, even song—that cultivate agency, creativity, and a multiplicity of viewpoints. By employing the politics of imagination and representation, it considers how media shapes and even produces our experience of reality. This work was featured in the 2019 MSU Broad Art Lab exhibition The Broadcast.
“A healthy future for museums relies on embracing and preserving in perpetuity the richness of diverse cultures through our collections,” said Director Mónica Ramírez-Montagut. “We are particularly proud of our current roster of acquisitions focused on work by women and artists of color, which will move our institutional needle towards equity of representation, and thus shape our future to one where we are all adequately and respectfully represented.” “The acquisition of these incredible works, all of which are drawn from current exhibitions or will be on view in 2022, will enable continued research and sustained dialogue with these 11 artists by the museum and across the MSU community,” said Georgia Erger, assistant curator and staff lead for the acquisitions committee. “These artists share a commitment to social, racial, and environmental justice; through their artistic and activist practices they amplify the voices and narratives that most urgently need to be heard within our communities.”