Libraries curating exhibitions

Concordia University’s 4TH SPACE will host a public panel on April 16 about how research libraries use exhibitions to challenge silence and foreground marginalized voices. (concordia.ca) The event, “Curating Resistance: Library Exhibitions as Pedagogy, Protest and Practice,” is scheduled for Thursday, April 16, 2026, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at Concordia’s J.W. McConnell Building. Concordia says people can attend in person, register for Zoom, or watch live on YouTube. (concordia.ca) Concordia’s event page says the session will examine how research libraries stage exhibitions that “resist silence,” “amplify marginalized voices” and create public dialogue from library collections. The panel is organized by the Art Libraries Society of North America Conference Planning Advisory Committee. (concordia.ca) In this context, a library exhibition is not just a display case with rare books or archival material. Concordia describes these shows as teaching tools and public interventions that can push back against censorship, institutional inertia and narrow art-historical canons. (concordia.ca) The panel also functions as a pre-conference event for the Art Libraries Society of North America before its 54th annual conference in Montréal from May 2 through May 8, 2026. The society says this year’s conference theme is “Résistance.” (concordia.ca) (arlisna.org) The Art Libraries Society of North America says it has more than 1,000 members, including art librarians, visual resources professionals, curators, artists, educators and students across North America. That makes the Concordia panel part of a professional conversation inside a field that sits between libraries, museums and universities. (arlisna.org) The Montréal conference frames that conversation in political terms. On its conference page, the society says libraries “resist censorship” by defending access to information, “resist budget cuts” by arguing for their public role, and “resist privatization” by promoting open access to research. (arlisna.org) Concordia lists four organizers for the April 16 event: Adèle Flannery of Université du Québec à Montréal, Pamela Caussy of Concordia University, Gwen Mayhew of the Canadian Centre for Architecture, and Hélène Brousseau of Concordia. The panel will be followed by an open meeting with the Art Libraries Society of North America board for members and non-members. (concordia.ca) The setting matters too. Concordia’s 4TH SPACE calendar places the panel among public-facing events on disability arts, Caribbean thought, artificial intelligence and aging, showing the venue’s role as a campus storefront for research aimed at wider audiences. (concordia.ca) On April 16, the question is not whether libraries can mount exhibitions. It is how those exhibitions use collections, labels and public programming to decide whose histories are visible in the first place. (concordia.ca)