UNH Today

Join the Museum of Art, Thurs., Sept. 15, 5:30pm-6:30pm for an evening lecture “Imagine a Nation: Art, Leadership and the Vision of an African Kingdom” with visiting scholar Karen Elizabeth Milbourne, PhD, Curator, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution. Dr. Milbourne will discuss her research of the Lozi people, Barotseland, Zambia and her interest in the exhibition 7,000 miles from Durham, Margaret Carson Hubbard in Africa on view in the Museum of Art Aug. 31–Oct. 16, 2016. The Museum is free and open to the public.

Dr. Karen E. Milbourne has been a Curator at the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution (NMAfA) in Washington DC since May 2008. Previously, she was Associate Curator of African Art and Department Head for the Arts of Africa, the Americas, Asia and the Pacific Islands at The Baltimore Museum of Art, in Baltimore Maryland, and prior to that, Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, KY. Her expertise includes the arts and pageantry of western Zambia and contemporary African art. Since joining the NMAfA, she has curated the exhibition series Artists in Dialogue and the focus show, A Brave New World, and provided the in-house supervision for the exhibitions, Yinka Shonibare MBE and Central Nigeria Unmasked. Her exhibition, Earth Matters: Land as Material and Metaphor in the Arts of Africa is accompanied by an award-winning scholarly book published by Monacelli Press. She co-curated Senses of Time: Video and Film-based Art of Africa with Dr. Polly Roberts of LACMA and UCLA, and her exhibition, “Market Symphony by Emeka Ogboh” opened at the NMAfA on Feb. 3, 2016.

Dr. Milbourne received her PhD in Art History from The University of Iowa in 2003 and has been the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including a prestigious Fulbright Fellowship and Smithsonian Secretary’s Award for Excellence and Smithsonian Secretary’s Research Prize. Her publications appear in edited volumes and such journals as African Arts, Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art, Art Papers, ARS, and Collections. She is the former Chair of the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowships and an advisor on the Smithsonian committees to the Consortium for Valuing World Cultures and Living in the Anthropocene.

Dr. Milbourne will be on campus to view the Margaret Carson Hubbard Papers housed in Special Collections and Archives, Dimond Library and the Lozi art and objects collected by Hubbard in Barotseland, Zambia for the making of her film Liebalala (Sweetheart) 1935,which will be screened by the Museum on Wednesday, October 12, Noon-1pm, in the Paul Creative Arts Center, Room A218.

This lecture complements 7,000 miles from Durham, Margaret Carson Hubbard in Africa and Marion E. James in India which was organized to celebrate the University’s 150 years of scholarship, research, and the contributions of its faculty and alumni. It is not only the Hubbard collection that brings Karen Milbourne to campus, the Smithsonian National Museum of Art was founded by UNH alumnus, Warren Robbins ’45.

The Museum of Art hours of operation during the academic year: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday 10am-4pm; Thursday, 10am -8pm; and Saturday and Sunday, 1-5pm; closed University holiday. All exhibitions and accompanying programs are supported in part by the Friends of the Museum and by a grant from the NH State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. Follow the Museum of Art on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram #MOAUNH.

Image: Karen Elizabeth Milbourne, PhD, Curator, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution