Season 2, Episode 5: Emergent Strategy Podcast “Possibility and Pragmatism with Thelma Golden”
*Please note: these transcripts are intended to increase the accessibility of the podcast; there should be no reprinting or distribution without permission.
Thelma: (00:00:00) You know, when I think of the place where I work, the intersection where I work the most is the one between possibility and pragmatism, right. That has really defined, not only I think my leadership style, but also the space at which I feel that I have been able to have the most impact as a leader.
(00:00:20) Theme Music (“Wolves” - Hurray for the Riff Raff)
Sage: (00:00:38) Hello, and welcome to the Emergent Strategy podcast, hosted by the Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute. We're a collective of facilitators, mediators, trainers, and curious human beings interested in how we get in right relationship with change. Today, I'll be guiding our interview. I'm Sage, ESII’s architect. Emergent strategy is the way we generate and reshape complex systems and patterns with relatively simple interactions. And this podcast is an opportunity for us to be in conversation with folks who are using emergent strategy in so many ways. And thinking about how we create change in the world. Today's guest is the glorious Thelma Golden. Thelma Golden is director and chief curator of the Studio Museum of Harlem, and has been for almost two, a little over two decades. She brings experience with curation, advocacy for the arts, arts organizational management, and a number of other expertise to this discussion of emergent strategy. And we are so excited that you said yes, Thelma. So happy to have you.
Thelma: (00:01:46) Thank you.
Sage: Welcome.
Thelma: Thank you. Hello, Sage. And I am so, uh, grateful and honored to be here.
Sage: (00:01:54) Well, it was delightful this summer to find out the emergent strategies, the text that you had read, and we, and I was like, ‘Oh yes. Oh, oh, Thelma Golden reading it’. Okay. Yes. Let's have this conversation for everyone to hear, cuz I'm, I'm excited about how that's showing up in the field and in your work, but before we launch into all of that.
Thelma: Yeah.
Sage: How are you right now today?
Thelma: (00:02:16) Today, I am grateful. I, a space that I've had to hold over these many past months have, as we've lived in complexity and intensity and with all forms of, you know, ways of being in the world right now. So today I again show up with gratitude.
Sage: (00:02:38) Mm. Thank you. Thank you for showing up. Thank you for showing up for this and thank you for showing up. When I look at your work, I think about ‘what you pay attention to grows’ like the principles and elements in emergent strategy, creating more possibilities, iteration. These are some of the things that for me, uh, lead me to say, you know what, Thelma Golden is an emergent strategist. Do you accept that premise?
Thelma: (00:03:03) I accept that premise with a huge amount of pride and humility because I think I felt so seen when I first encountered the ideas of emergent strategy. They gave words to feelings and ways of working and ways of being that I have long held. But in some ways, perhaps didn't necessarily always feel that they were valid, right. In many of the spaces that I had to occupy.
Sage: (00:03:33) Oh, that's really, uh, I appreciate you for sharing that and what it means to be able to find, sort of find your folk and your footing. And when you do, did it shift how you entered into the different spaces that you found, that you found yourself in?
Thelma: (00:03:48) I think it certainly did, right? Because in many ways it allowed me in reflection to really understand not my censored definition of leadership or organizational strategy or even management at large, but it made me understand the ways that I had entered into those spaces and how they could and would have an impact on my work at the Studio Museum in Harlem and in my life, in, in the field, in the museum field.
Sage: (00:04:22) So let's take it, let's take it back a little bit. We would love to get into a little of your background. One of the questions I'm curious about is where in your career, or hasn't always been, I should say where, um, did you first start to put art and culture curation and, and the museum world in relationship to transform mean the world in which we live like in relationship to, um, the wellbeing of communities and how we think about change?
Thelma: (00:04:47) I think those ideas entered my work early in my career because my career was defined by the fact that I found museums to be these profoundly inspiring places as a young person. I grew up in New York City where I still live and work and had the real privilege, the advantage, the opportunity to spend my time in museums specifically, but cultural institutions in this city as a young person. And it is through art and culture that I was able to engage and understand myself and the world. So I imagine when I began to think about the fact that I wanted to be a curator and that's something I decided when I was a high school student, a teenager. I went to college with the idea that I wanted to be a curator, but I always thought of that as being a curator who was involved with attached to not just objects in institution, but audiences, so that this idea of art and culture in its place and community, its place in the world always define the way in which I wanted to be a curator.
Sage: (00:05:55) Oh, that's interesting. Thank you for sharing that. I wonder when we – people often talk about the museum world, they often talk about it as a site of struggle, particularly for folks of color. And I really appreciate the way you talk about it as a young person, you entered into it and it was inspiring to you. Does it feel, is that a tension that you, that you still sometimes navigate today? And if so, what helps you stay in the, in the curiosity, inspiration body –
Thelma: Yes.
Sage: – inside the system?
Thelma: (00:06:27) Yes, it is a tension that I still hold today, but it's a tension that's born out of the fact that my engagement with museums always involved an understanding of this struggle. Not that I understood it in its detail, but it's simply to say that I grew up knowing the Studio Museum in the same way that I knew the Metropolitan Museum. And it wasn't until of course I began to study art history that I understood the relationships between institutions that I understood the, the radical path to the Studio Museum as an institution that was founded because of the exclusion of black and brown artists from legacy institutions in the city that I began to understand that the intentionality of my parents and the way in which they introduced me into culture was with this idea that cultural specificity stood at the center of the way in which I understood institutions. So, you know, I feel very lucky to have as a child known the Studio Museum in the way that I knew the Met or MoMA or the Whitney. That I knew Alvin AiIey and Dance Theater of Harlem, just as I did New York City Ballet and, you know, and so on. That, you know, my parents really understood and valued black cultural institutions. And I was made to understand why those black cultural institutions existed and also why they needed to be supported.
Sage: (00:07:56) Hmm. Let's hear for black parents.
Thelma: Um-hmm.
Sage: Um, I, uh, which is a perfect segue, cuz I was curious about lineage, like lineage. When you think about yourself and your work in the world, you have both your own sort of legacy that, that, that you've been growing for decades and also in whose wake do you walk?
Thelma: Mm.
Sage: Whose lineage?.
Thelma: (00:08:18) Yes. Well, I will walk in a familial lineage. That is one defined by my mother who was a woman who, while she did not have an extensive professional career outside of the home, was someone who existed in deep and profound and powerful ways in community. My mother was a member of multiple Black women's organizations. She was a volunteer and officer in our church. She was an organizer within the community. So I grew up seeing my mother get dressed and go to meetings, type agendas, you know, discuss parliamentarian systems on the telephone, right with, with her colleague, sister, friends who ran these organizations. I watched her be responsive. What, what I understand now as philanthropy, but I understood how my mother would see an issue and create pathways to create resources for them. I saw her as someone who understood what one's role had to be if you were given – too much who have, is given, you know, much is expected. And my mother lived that very much and lived that deeply and taught me a lot in terms of the ways in which I understand myself. My father was a lawyer and an insurance broker ran a business. And I learned so much from my father about the world of work. I worked for him from the time I was 10 or 11 answering the phone in his insurance office, filing. I learned what it meant to be professional. And even though this was my father in his office, the expectation of tasks and getting them done and doing them correctly. But I also, in that he modeled again, a whole vision of service. I saw the way in which my father engaged with his clients and the ways in which the business conversations were peppered with conversations that were about the world and culture and access and opportunity and information.
Thelma: (00:10:22) My father also was a deep intellectual, um, a deep reader, uh, someone deeply engaged in art and culture. And so he gave me that as well. You know, my, my love of all of those things was encouraged. And so together, my parents, um, both Capricorns, you know, were incredibly present and viscerally present, um, in the ways in which they allowed me to find my voice and form me and they supported it deeply, they supported it deeply. And I am forever grateful for that. But I also have a professional lineage because my career would not have existed without the examples of some who came before me, who in, in several cases I had the chance to work for. And those are people like Dr. Lowery Stokes Sims, who was a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Dr. Mary Schmidt Campbell, who was director of the Studio Museum in Harlem from 1977 to 1988. There are people like Jeanette Ingberman who founded Exit Art, uh, fantastic, uh, non-collecting [WORD/PHRASE UNCLEAR] like space that existed in SoHo in the eighties and nineties. You know, and, and so many others, you know, I, I, I feel like I carry a deep professional lineage as well, that really defines who I am.
Sage: (00:11:43) Oh, I'm so excited. I, I often in the beginning of the podcast, remind folks to grab a pen and paper so that they can take notes and just the lineage, the list that you've given, I feel like, um, is a beautiful opportunity to amplify and uplift names that folks may not know, but they should get to know –
Thelma: Um-hmm. Um-hmm.
Sage: – you know. And so, so thank you for that.
Thelma: Yeah.
Sage: Thank you. Thank you to them for creating space for the work that you do in the world.
Thelma: Um-hmm.
Sage: So I'm curious about your origin story with emergent strategy. How did you find the, did it fall off a shelf or did your feet, like, how did you find it? Like how did you come across this text?
Thelma: Yes.
Sage: What made you want to read it?
Thelma: (00:12:21) Because I knew you were going to ask me this question. I really spent some time trying to remember exactly how I came to emergent strategy. Um, because now that it exists for me, you know, that sort of origin story feels irrelevant, right? Because it's, it's in my world. But what I know is that I certainly am almost a hundred percent convinced that my first sense of emergent strategy as a book came through my seeing it posted in some form, the book itself, perhaps, or words from the book, or perhaps a photograph of adrienne and that would've been posted by, um, Alexis Pauline Gumbs. So I know that I remember in some way or another, that my sense of emergent strategy was tied to my own sort of following the work that Alexis Pauline Gumbs. And I think at the point I mentioned it, you know, one of the great pleasures of my life at the Studio Museum is working around incredibly smart, brilliant, brave, you know, younger, uh, people.
Thelma: (00:13:30) And so often, right. I, my, my enthusiasms, you know, often then result in me saying to everyone around me, you know, ‘Hey’. I, and it happened that the first person I said this to like, ‘Wow, emergent strategy, deeply interested in this. Do you know about it?’ was my former beloved colleague at the Studio Museum, Evans Richardson, who happened to be a close friend and colleague of adrienne's. So he kind of immediately said ‘Yes’, and sort of gave me more of a sense of the work. And so I read the book and again, felt immediately seen. This would be, you know, 2017, uh, when it was published. So that would've been 17 years into my Studio Museum life. And it felt like something that on the one hand felt incredibly familiar giving words to what I thought, but it also felt entirely new and sort of opened a portal for me. I had the chance in that same year to meet adrienne. And it was on an occasion that was an incredible one for her. So, you know, let her tell that story. But I met her, you know, on an evening where, um, where we were both involved in a convening, but, you know, she had a central role or at least there's a narrative in it. Um, where, you know, adrienne was there and we got a chance to meet and we got a chance to talk. And I got a chance to say to her how much, um, the work meant to me. And that was very important to me. But quickly after that, I began to see where the work had applications for many of my colleagues and peers. And I began to share it in a relatively evangelical way.
(00:15:16) Music Break - “Jupiter’s Dance” plays. Lyrics: “I'm a keeper of the moon and you'll never be home. Revelations come in two, blowing smoke rings in the dark”.
Sage: (00:15:37) Relatively evangelical is a great phrase. Thank you for sharing that story and, and for all the intersections, both of people and of, of the text. So I'm curious because one of the reasons that we really were excited also talk to you is the really thinking about the way emergent strategies sometimes shows up in surprising places. As ESII as an institute, we never know where it's going to land and the way that emergent strategy has taken hold in the professionalized art and culture field has been really exciting to watch. And I'm curious about the practices that you have either, uh, adopted or things that you've seen that you're like, oh, emergent strategy has helped shift the conversation in the field in this way, or what are you seeing as some of the transformative moments that the engagement, intersection with this text is creating,
Thelma: (00:16:32) You know, Sage, we, we could be here for, for hours, right. In my sense of what that could be, but, you know, let's just start with a few. And, you know, I wanna say that, you know, when I say this, I'm really speaking about the applications I feel it can have for Black-led, Black serving, Black founded cultural institutions, the world, I work in. These applications broadly and the art sector. But, you know, when I think of, you know, the sort of level of stewardship that my own work requires, but the work that many of us are doing upholding our arts organizations, that's where I've seen these incredibly profound, um, applications. So, you know, starting with the principles, “Small is good, small as all”. And I think, you know, there's so much when we look over the last 50 years or so of, you know, cultural institutions, there is a sort of phenomena that positions growth and scaling as the only way towards a kind of success.
Thelma: (00:17:33) And I think that when, you know, thinking about, thinking about scale, thinking about impact in different ways serves in many cases, our institutions and our organizations well. You know, I think that there are so many ways that, um, you know, when I think about that one particular principle, it's one that allows for and understanding that the sense of who we are does not need to be defined always by the sense of scale.
Sage: Um-hmm.
Thelma: You know, I think another is, of course, you know, the second “Change is constant. Be like water”. I think in the arts cultural world, the nonprofit world there is perhaps maybe it's a great ideal, but I think it's more of a fantasy that there is some place of stasis that if we get to it, one of, sort of financial security, physical space, security, that that's what you're working towards. And that once you get there, your organization, your entity, your project, um, will then be, right. It's like this kind of waiting towards. I think that we have to be leading our organizations with this idea of a sense of constant change, right? Because that's just the nature of the world. And you know, another reason why emergent strategy is so resonant to me is because so much of it is inspired by an artist, of course, the, right. Octavia Butler herself. But that idea that, you know, change has to be the space that we're constantly working in, right. As opposed to this idea of a fantasy that there's some fixed state, you know, on the horizon. But I also think, you know, trust the people. If you trust them, they become trustworthy. You know, it's just a really important way to think about how to show up in the places and spaces that our institutions and organizations need to be internally as well as externally.
Sage: (00:19:35) Oh, I appreciate that. Thank you. Uh, it makes me think about institutions are, are often considered like fixed places.
Thelma: (00:19:45) Exactly. Um-hmm.
Sage: (00:19:47) So what does it mean for an institution to turn towards and lean into this idea of change is constant. What have you noticed? What have you developed for a Studio Museum or in your work that you're like, how you help grain this idea of this movement into the work, uh, with your staff, with your colleagues in a way that isn't frightening? Cause sometimes when I say things to folks like change is constant folks like, ‘Oh my God, no!’, uh, you know, we want a sense of rest. And, uh, um, there's a brilliant, uh, poet that says, you know, ‘You can find rest in the movement’. And so, you know, we'd love to hear.
Thelma: (00:20:25) Yeah, yes, Sage. I think that I try just a whole space for this idea because when I don't hold space for the idea that change is constant, it can make us, and I mean that, you know, a team of people, um, feel as if we are never achieving a goal, right? So to hold space for the idea that this constant motion, this constant state of change is the space that we are working in means that we can work with a sense of rooting in the present, but also being able to create work that is projecting towards a future, as opposed to always trying to stand in this fixed state. And you're right, you know, that's what institutions are and museums in particular, right? This is a concept of museums, particularly collecting institutions, you know, that we are collecting these works to steward in our present, but to hold for a future. And, and aren't we grateful for that, right? The opportunity to be able to see these evidences and artifacts of the past in places. But I think in terms of the work of institutions, it constantly has to be reacting to the circumstance that it finds itself in. I mean, nothing showed us that more than these last two years. And, but I think that there are any number of ways, right. That we're always sort of trying to hold space for being open to, um, change. You know, I like to work with this sense of optimism, right? Because the optimism is what allows me to see perhaps what might be challenges and limitations as opportunities. I like to imagine, you know, that, you know, limitations are real. Limitations exist, but perhaps, you know, with this sense of embracing ‘change is constant, be like water’, a sense of, you know, holding optimism that change can then be full of possibility.
Sage: (00:22:31) Yeah. Staying curious. What, um, thinks that, I think about the work of combating pessimism –
Thelma: Um-hmm.
Sage: – as part of our revolutionary struggle, and as part of the work we do is as, uh, change agents in the world. So I am curious, what kind of experiments are you in right now? Like, are there, uh, things that you're, you're practicing that, uh, you feel like are analogous to some of the principles or elements or things that, uh, you're, well, you mentioned vision –
Thelma: Yes.
Sage: – like the vision forward. And so –
Thelma: Yes.
Sage: – we'd love to hear a little bit about that.
Thelma: (00:23:11) Yes. Well, at this very moment, the Studio Museum is involved in perhaps, um, you know, the most transformative project for us since our founding, you know, in 1968. And that is we are building a new building. And in the process of building this new physical space, the great experiment has been how we re-envision who we are and how we work. Now, our mission stays the same and, you know, one of the great gifts of the Studio Museum in Harlem and the brilliant founders is that they gave us a mission that is so deep and profound, and that is quite simply to present, preserve and interpret the work of artists of African descent. And so that that mission is as important as it was when we were founded as it is now. And so the mission stays the same, but how we enact that mission in the form of a museum, both in terms of the model that exists in the world, but both in terms of where we might be continue to be a bold experiment in what it looks like to create different institutional models.
Thelma: (00:24:19) So a lot of the ideation going on right now is about very practical things like how we will live and work in this new, beautiful structure that's being designed for the museum by the architect Sir David Adjaye. But how we will also not just dig into those practicalities, but how also this moment provides a new sense of possibility. You know, when I think of the place where I work, the intersection where I work the most is the one between possibility and pragmatism, right? That has really defined, not only I think my leadership style, but also the space at which I feel that I have been able to have the most impact as a leader. So, you know, the pragmatism was the Studio Museum that was in a building that was built in 1914, a building that had a roof that wasn't so great and often would flood. And so even though the museum had done for its whole life groundbreaking important work, the physical space was not going to allow us to continue to do that work much longer. And so pragmatically, a new building made sense, but the possibility was in creating a new space, was being able to populate that space. Not only with the legacy of all the work the museum had done or the amazing collection that's been amassed, but to create space for all the work that's yet to be defined, right. For what a Studio Museum of, you know, 2050 might be and look like 2075. And so pragmatism and possibility.
Sage: (00:25:56) Oh, that's beautiful. I'm thinking about the relationship between material conditions and, and then our imagination, our human capacities. And I think that –
Thelma: Yes.
Sage: – description of the building and what it means to be in, moving to a, a, a new, beautifully designed building. I can't, I, the way you're describing, I can't wait to see it.
Thelma: Yeah.
Sage: And what that then allows for, in terms of imagining the way the work happens.
Thelma: Um-hmm.
Sage: That's so exciting. One of the projects, it seems like over the last, maybe the last few years is this expanding the walls.
Thelma: (00:26:34) Mm. Um-hmm.
Sage: (00:26:36) And that to me feels like part of this, what you're talking about this different way of working –
Thelma: Um-hmm.
Sage: – taking into account the current context, how people are engaging differently. Where are we in the world, in our houses or <laughs> whatever else is happening.
Thelma: Yes. Yes.
Sage: Can you talk about that innovation and how you all are?
Thelma: (00:26:58) Sure. You know, there are a number of programs that the museum has that have been created by our amazing staff that are about thinking about museums in, you know, new and profound ways, particularly museums cited within the intersection we are between art, artists and, and community. And so expanding the walls as a program that was created over 20 years ago for high school students as a way for them to engage with history, culture, art, image-making, but also community through photography. We have another project that's existing in this moment called In Harlem, where taking from our name, the Studio Museum in Harlem, when knowing we would not have a physical space, right. The museum, you know, we're building the new building on the site of the old building, which involved demolishing the old Studio Museum to now build a new building. So while that was happening and we didn't have a physical space, we wanted to literally be in Harlem. And so that created a whole set of projects that put us in the spaces of schools and community centers and parks, and really imagined a kind of decentralized relationship to program and a way that we could be in community with art and artists, and also create an experience of the museum that wasn't bound –
Sage: Oh, I love that.
Thelma: – in our physical space.
Sage: (00:28:25) So the museum becomes, uh, the museum goes wherever the people are.
Thelma: (00:28:32) That's right. That's right. That's right. Where people are and that the experience of the museum becomes defined by the context of these other spaces. So one of the projects that's part of In Harlem, um, is a project where we have reproductions of works of art in our collection that are in classrooms, in schools, around Harlem. So the context of those classrooms really then defines the experience for those young people of encountering those artworks, which is a portal for those young people to learn about those artists, themes in the artwork. For teachers to be able to engage those artworks in curriculum, but also to have the experience of what it means to sort of think about art as part of one's daily life. You know, and I have to say, you know, that work is done, uh, very much as part of who we are at the Studio Museum, but also very much in line with the work that's done by our peer institutions in Harlem as well. So while we are in the community in this way, it is work that's done in real deep communion with our peers at organizations like Dance Theater of Harlem, National Black Theater, the Schomburg Center, Harlem Stage, the Apollo theater, you know, Jazzmobile, you know, this range of organizations that are all thinking about the ways in which the arts can live deeply in community. And that's because we hold this incredible heritage of Harlem as a community defined so deeply by arts and culture.
(00:30:02) Music Break: “KiN” instrumental plays.
Sage: (00:30:27) There's something about the, the deconstruction of, of the institution as a physical walled space and invitation to be engaged in the museum. And I've got air quotes for folks who are on a podcast, right? Like the museum by virtue of the experience of the work and not necessarily where you experience the work by the fact that you experience the work.
Thelma: (00:30:56) Yes, yes. I think that's, that's exactly it. And it's also about being in right relationship to ideas about access to arts, right. Who, who gets to have these experiences and how? And I think that idea of right relationship to access is also something that is sort of deeply ingrained in the DNA of the Studio Museum, since it was founded.
Sage: (00:31:23) When you think about the position, I love this constellation that you've named, uh, whoever's folks are listening. Like, uh, whenever I hear that kind of list, I'm like, ‘Oh, to live in Harlem, like to be a black person in Harlem. Oh my goodness’.
Thelma: Um-hmm. Um-hmm.
Sage: It sounds to me also that in terms of like the legacy of these organizations, there's an interdependent-ness that you all have cultivated over, I mean, some, yeah, decades.
Thelma: (00:31:54) Decades, decades, the Schomburg is going to celebrate its centennial in a few years, the Apollo equally. National Black Theater, Studio Museum in Harlem, and Dance Theater, we were all founded the same year. That alone, you know, like, I, I, I say that so often, because I think to understand when we're sort of talking about what it means to think about cultural change. You know, what it means to reimagine. To imagine that in Harlem, in that year, these three organizations, the Studio Museum in Harlem, which is founded by a group of people, National Black Theater founded by Dr. Barbara Ann Teer and the Dance Theater of Harlem by Arthur Mitchell, that it, at that moment, that they all understood the importance of what it meant to create cultural institutions. And that interdependence that you speak of was bound around the fact that those organizations, as well as those that existed before us, and then others that came after, that they all were committed to shared goals around the culture in, as it related to community in very deep and profound local ways. But also these were institutions always attaching themselves to a global sense of what it means to present. Right. And preserve black culture.
Sage: (00:33:18) Yeah. The, because that I, I was struck by what you just said around the, the same year and thinking about the longevity of all of these organizations and the independent nature –
Thelma: Um-hmm.
Sage: – and our reference to Octavia Butler and the, the importance of relationship as a site for survival.
Thelma: Um-hmm.
Sage: That our, it's our relationships, you know, that, that gets pulled through very clearly in emergent strategy that we are operating on the, on the, the –
Thelma: Yes.
Sage: – the space of relationship is a space of transformation.
Thelma: Yes.
Sage: And that, that is part of what has, has –
Thelma: Um-hmm.
Sage: – lasted in the legacy of you all with, would you say that's it?
Thelma: (00:34:01) I think that, I think that is exactly right. And I know an emergent strategy, you know, and in, in many ways kind of analyzes and, and brings forth some of the work of Margaret Wheatley in that ideas of relationship and, um, which is work that also is deeply inspiring to me. And so, yes, I think the idea of relationship, of interconnectedness, of a shared sense of responsibility that, that all of those things define, right. This kind of really, really rich cultural space, um, that, that is Harlem.
Sage: (00:34:39) So given the nexus that you sit in and, and it's almost like there's a way in which Studio Museum of Harlem, in Harlem gets to sit inside this beautiful nest, and then there's the forest around it, right. Like there's, and I'm curious about, um, how you see the relationship the ways in which that you move and institutions that you are connected to deeply move and changes you might see in, in the, in the field itself. Right. Like we talk about change yourself, transform yourself to transform the world, or like, how do you, how are you seeing these things –
Thelma: That's right.
Sage: – a ripple, are you noticing any ripples or any patterns that –?
Thelma: (00:35:21) Certainly, I think I'm noticing profound ripples and perhaps the first that I'd speak of is the ripple of recognition, right? The, sort of the recognition of the impact and value of culturally specific institutions in many ways creating pathways that are now in some ways finally being recognized as necessary and important. And so that's where I'd start. But I also think what I see in terms of change in, in the field is just a real sense that, you know, the recognition that change is not just necessary, but inevitable, right. To maintain any idea of relevance to this sector in ways that are going to be important to people and generations to come.
Sage: (00:36:16) Oh, thank you for uplifting recognition and the, and the importance of that, that you can have recognition without power, but you can't have power without recognition.
Thelma: (00:36:27) Exactly. Exactly, exactly.
Sage: (00:36:30) And so there's, there's a precipice moment, um, in the, in the kind of explosion of recognition and what, what do you feel like we are on the edge of? Right.
Thelma: (00:36:41) I feel we are on the edge of, uh, of a re-imagination. And I think that it's going to play out in different ways. And I know that one can have this conversation in different quarters, and there are different singular solutions, but I like to practice complexity and imagine that there should be multiple solutions here. So I think that what we're on the edge of is some re-imagination of the kind of institutional structures that we have that have proven themselves to need a reevaluation if they are going to be in right relationship to the sense of diversity and equity that we all imagine is important and necessary. But I also think we're on the edge of the creation of new models. You know, I like to say to young people in the art and culture world, now that I'm imagining that somewhere, somehow there's a group of people, just like the group of people who in the late sixties, a moment, very much like the one we're in now who sat down and decided there should be a museum devoted to black artists in Harlem. I'm imagining there's a group of young people who are doing that right now. And there are new organizations being created with new models and new ideas. And I think that we will benefit from both of those kinds of re-imaginings.
Sage: (00:38:08) Yes. One of the things that I, um, I hear coded in your language a little bit is, um, are, are you a secret science nerd? You're referencing Meg Wheatley and Leadership in the New Science. You referenced complexity a few times.
Thelma: (00:38:28) Here's the thing I am not. And, and here's, what's so interesting, and this is why I, can I go back and credit, you know, Artie and Thelma Golden. You know, I was one of those young people who was good at what I was good at. And, you know, the norm is that we are meant to all be, you know, good at all the things. And I mean that in terms of like school.
Sage: Um-hmm.
Thelma: – and I was the child who did really well in some subjects and terribly in others, math and science would be the terribly in.
Sage: Okay.
Thelma: And my parents, of course, like most parents encouraged me towards more achievement in those areas. But then at a certain point, I would say around sophomore year in high school, they kind of leaned in, right, to the idea that, you know, perhaps I was the person who should go deep and allowed me, you know, it's not like they said, you don't have to do well in those subjects, but they stopped being as pressured about it. So, no, where this comes from Sage is the fact that I came of age in this field at a time of, I think, a great deal of, um, contradictory ideals about training and management. You know, I was a curator at the moment when museum directors who traditionally had been art historians and curators. There was a move towards perhaps they should be MBAs. Museums are complex businesses. They need business thinking. I came up at a moment where professional development generally fully centered itself around kind of business ideas of leadership and management.
Sage: Um-hmm.
Thelma: And I, as someone who in the field came into leadership, very young, began my career in a very public way, very young. I was offered those kinds of opportunities, right? So read those books, went to the seminars and, and we really often saw that this was a goal of how to be a leader, how to run an organization in a great way. And, and the reason I say I found so much recognition when I found emergent strategy is that all of that always made sense to me. And I do believe it's true. It just never felt completely a hundred percent how I knew I had to show up in order to steward an institution like the Studio Museum, or to exist in an art museum world, like the one that existed. So that's the trajectory that led me to things like Margaret Wheatley. Led me to, you know, non even business or, or management books to really understand how to be effective in the work that always has felt to me like my work. I mean, I feel deeply called to that work. And I'm always cautious when I use that language because, you know, on one level it could sound incredibly pretentious. And on another hand, you know, it, it, it carries so much responsibility, but here I am. It's, you know, January of 2022, I began at the Studio Museum in January of 2000, but really my first moment at the Studio Museum was at an as an intern in 1985.
Thelma: (00:41:35) So I've had a long relationship with this institution. I began my career in the museum field in 1988. So I've been doing this for a long time. So I do know that I've been called to this work. You know, I spoke this out loud as a 19 year old. I said, I want to be a contemporary curator. And that has been my path. So in that sense of being called to this knowing that deeply, this is where I'm meant to be. I have always wanted to be as effective as I could be to be able to be an instrument of the change necessary. You know, so much of my work has been about creating space and as a curator, that meant creating space for artists, making exhibition, creating space for the ideas. As a museum director, it's about creating space for art, the objects, but also for audience. Right now, of course, I'm quite literally involved right in the creation of space in the building of this building, but that's also the prompt to be able to, again, create not just a physical space, but intellectual space, cultural space, and I even think spiritual space.
(00:42:43) Music Break - “SAGA” plays. Lyric: “Take it. They always want you to take it.”
Sage: (00:43:04) Thank you so much for answering your calling and, and thank you for, for, for going deep there. I love the way you were talking about this, the, the starting out as an intern in, you know, in 88 and, and, and we have seen, and, and I know you have seen so many, uh, um, ages, right? Like we, sometimes we mark things in decades, but they're also like these ages you've seen, you know, ages of organizations come and go. We've seen ages. If we want to pull an Octavia Butler, all the various apocalypses that have occurred over the last, over the time that you've been in this work. And I'm wondering, what questions is it leaving you with now?
Thelma: (00:43:43) Yeah, I am having big questions, uh, that all are involved in future thinking and future making. And those questions kind of exist in a twinned way. So my questions are about how do we, in this moment, create a sense of permanence for the legacy of our cultural ancestors? And by that, I mean, how do we do that for these institutions and organizations that they created, but also for the individual works and ideas, right, that led us to this moment. You know, one of these principles of, of, of, you know, sort of contemporary mainstream thought in leadership that I find, you know, problematic is the idea of the singular leader in a singular moment, right? So that in each era that a leader exists in that era and that the reference to the past or the future is not there. I feel I can't, I, I can't exist in this space without always carrying, right, the legacy of those who were before me at the Studio Museum. When I'm doing this work, I'm doing the work of the seven directors before me, whose names I often call because I feel I'm sitting sort of with them and all that they did to get us to this point, and then I will leave and that will continue. So I think I'm, I'm the questions I have about how do we make sure, right, that we are honoring those contributions, particularly those contributions that we know existed before the point of recognition in these spaces. So they go unmarked, right? Um, un, you know, they're not honored. They're, they're not, you know, in books. They don't exist in a way that they're known, which is why, again, we have to constantly call their names, but I'm also the questions I have are about how do we create structures right now that provide for a future, right? I am deeply invested in the idea of making a futures because in some ways I know that it is that kind of future thinking that had to be inherent in the thoughts of the founders of the Studio Museum. They didn't come to this idea with a collection or a fortune. You know, so much of kind of cultural institution making comes from that place. But they came with a huge amount of cultural currency, which made them know and understand the importance of what it would mean to make the museum in, in ways that I know that project into this day. Like, I, I, I know they believe that we could be here now because of the way in which they could speak and think into the future. But I want also the questions I'm having now are how do I do that for the generation that is to come.
Sage: (00:46:41) Thank you so much Thelma. I, I'm really sitting with so much out of this conversation and particularly how much thinking you are doing around reimagining and the future. When, so often folks think about museums of places of the past.
Thelma: Um-hmm.
Sage: And so the, I feel like you are, you are speaking about the work of, of museums. And I, I don't wanna say just generally museums –
Thelma: No.
Sage: – in general, cause that's not true, but the museum, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and, and this, this nexus of, of a Black-led, Black-founded organizations that, uh, exist because someone believed in, in, in the future generations.
Thelma: (00:47:24) Yes. You know, I think, you know, another principle of emergent strategy that I hold dear is ‘what you pay attention to grows’. And, you know, I am someone who has spent their life, their entire adult life, really paying attention to what I believe is the deep power of art and artists and the importance of art and the vision and voices of artists as the way in which we can continually hold and honor our sense of humanity. So, you know, this thinking, you know, in this moment, yes, is about a past, but it also is about how that past will ensure, right, this sense in the present of what institutions like the Studio Museum can be to our communities, to our culture, but also what they can be to the world at large. And that's why I'm constantly thinking about our organizations, our institutions in the future, and looking for ways in which we can create new models of thought and ideas that will take us there.
Outro: (00:48:46) This podcast is produced by Natalie Peart. Music for the Emergent Strategy podcast is provided by Hurray for the Riff Raff and their album Life on Earth. To support the ongoing work of the Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute, please make a donation at alliedmedia.org/esii.
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