Caroline Bastian

Call for Applications

ACASA Provenance Workshop

November 9–10, 2026 | Chicago, Illinois

Submission Portal: https://forms.gle/oN4LRZJ2r2SRGqxC8

ACASA invites applications for its inaugural Provenance Workshop, a new initiative designed to invite dialogue, collaboration, and skill-building around provenance research and the stewardship of African art collections.

As museums, scholars, and cultural institutions continue to grapple with questions of ownership, collecting histories, accessibility, transparency, and ethical responsibility, provenance research continues to be an increasingly important area of practice and inquiry. This workshop aims to create a dedicated space for participants to engage with emerging methodologies, current debates, and practical approaches to provenance research while building connections with colleagues across the field.

This two-day, in-person program is hosted by the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago and the Art Institute of Chicago. It will bring together scholars, museum professionals, graduate students, independent researchers, and emerging leaders for focused discussions and hands-on learning with experts in the field.

The workshop will feature a keynote address, an opening reception, and three interactive sessions discussing topics of:

• Ethics, Legality, and Responsibility in Provenance Research
• Provenance and Public Engagement
• Making United States African Art Collections Accessible

To ensure meaningful discussion and active participation, the event is limited to 20 participants. Admission will be determined through a competitive application process with applications reviewed by a committee.

Eligibility

Applicants must:

• Be an active ACASA member
• Demonstrate a strong interest in provenance research, museum practice, collections accessibility, cultural heritage, or related fields

Application Requirements

Applicants must submit:

1. Statement of Interest (maximum 500 words) describing their background, interest in the workshop, and how participation will support their current or future work
2. Curriculum Vitae (maximum 3 pages)

Application Timeline

• Application Portal Opens: July 8, 2026
• Application Deadline: August 5, 2026
• Notification of Acceptance: Early September 2026

Registration and Funding

ACASA is unable to provide funding for this workshop, but is able to provide no registration costs for those invited to attend. Participants are responsible for arranging and covering all travel, accommodation, and related expenses.

This workshop is designed to be an ongoing program that supports learning and collaboration around provenance research and related issues in the field of African art.

ACASA plans to offer a future virtual provenance workshop to ensure broader accessibility and participation, especially for those unable to travel. ACASA aims to host these workshops during non-Triennial years, alternating between in-person and virtual formats pending participant feedback, member interest, and the availability of funding and institutional partnerships. Through this initiative, ACASA is working to develop member networks, create training opportunities, and support ongoing conversations about topics important to our members.

Please submit all required materials via this link: https://forms.gle/oN4LRZJ2r2SRGqxC8

For questions, please contact Allison Martino, ACASA Secretary, at secretary@acasaonline.org

ACASA is launching a new research grant to support graduate students enrolled in PhD programs in the arts and cultures of Africa and the African Diaspora. This award is specifically directed to students in the formative stages of doctoral research and dissertation development. Every year one (or more) $5,000 grants will go to those who show exceptional promise of becoming leaders in the field based on their innovative approaches to dissertation research. A five-person selection committee chosen by the ACASA Board will determine the grantee(s); the inaugural recipient will be announced at the 2027 ACASA Triennial.

This merit-based award is intended to facilitate progress toward a fully realized dissertation prospectus. ACASA seeks to provide resources to support the development of new and groundbreaking methodologies, drawing on archives, libraries, and museum collections, as well as interactions with communities, partners, scholars, mentors, colleagues, and others. The range of possibilities is without limit and the grant is open to all continuing PhD students. We welcome bold ideas and risk-taking. At the end of the research year, recipients are expected to produce a progress report that can be posted on the ACASA website and linked to the Newsletter.

Criteria that will guide in assessing and selecting deserving dissertation research proposals include (but are not limited to):

1. Incorporating one or more methodological approaches in original ways;
2. Focusing on new subjects of inquiry (especially those involving historically under-studied regions, groups, artists, mediums or more);
3. Employing non-traditional strategies of investigation and collaboration;
4. Engaging with timely disciplinary or other practical, methodological, and theoretical issues, questions, and challenges, including the future of the field and its continuity.

Applications for the inaugural award cycle will open in Fall 2026, with submission deadlines and application materials to be announced at that time. Applications will be due in early 2027. All updates and communications regarding the grant will be shared through ACASA’s website, ACASA social media channels, and member email announcements. Those interested in joining ACASA may visit the website for membership information.

ACASA Grant for Innovative Early Dissertation Research is a donor-funded initiative. It has been launched by Marla C. Berns, former ACASA President and ACASA Leadership Awardee, in honor of her mentor Professor Arnold Rubin, whose research and ideas advanced innovation and risk in the development of African art history. Berns’ outright gift along with a $5,000 matching challenge will initiate an effort to secure funding from other ACASA members. If you wish to help support the future of this new ACASA research initiative please contact Amanda M. Maples, ACASA President (president@acasaonline.org) or Caroline Bastian, Arts Administrator and Project Manager (bastian@acasaonline.org).

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The Art Institute of Chicago is pleased to announce that we are now accepting applications for a three-year (2026-2029) Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice Curatorial Fellowship in the department of Arts of Africa.

The fellow will work with the department to advance new avenues of research and collection development focusing on artistic traditions grounded in Africa’s Islamic heritage, interrogating the boundaries of the field and the ways in which the category of Islamic art is defined.

The successful candidate will hold an advanced degree (Master’s level or beyond) in art history, Islamic studies, Middle Eastern studies, African studies, history, anthropology, or a closely related field with a strong research focus on Islamic art produced on the African continent. The full position description and requirements can be found here.

To ensure the fullest possible consideration, applicants should apply by Friday, February 27, 2026.

News Release – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 19, 2025

Arts Council of the African Studies Association (ACASA) Awarded $350,000 Grant to Strengthen Organizational Capacity, Sustainability, and Global Collaboration

The Arts Council of the African Studies Association (ACASA) has received a $350,000 General Operating Support grant from the Mellon Foundation, marking a transformative investment in the organization’s continued growth, capacity building, and leadership in advancing scholarship, ethical museum practices, and artistic exchange in African art studies.

As the only professional organization based in the United States dedicated to the study of African arts, ACASA has, for more than four decades, supported scholars, artists, curators, and museum professionals across the world. This new three-year award builds on ACASA’s prior Mellon-funded capacity-building initiatives (2022–2025), ensuring sustained administrative and strategic development while expanding global engagement and fostering ethical stewardship of African art collections.

Grant-Supported Initiatives

The Mellon Foundation’s support will enable ACASA to:

• Sustain key administrative leadership by continuing the role of an Arts Administrator/Project Manager to oversee strategic planning, governance, and event delivery.
• Host the 20th Triennial Symposium on African Art in Rabat, Morocco (July 2027) in collaboration with Université Mohammed V, expanding ACASA’s global footprint and fostering cross-continental dialogue.
• Launch a Provenance Research Training Workshop Program in partnership with leading museums to strengthen ethical research capacity and transparency.
• Partner with Matrix at MSU to support the “Making United States African Art Collections Accessible and Visible” (MUSAA) digital initiative — an aggregator connecting users, especially those based in Africa, with data on African artworks in U.S. collections.
• Create a long-term sustainability plan in partnership with nonprofit consultants to diversify funding streams and ensure ACASA’s financial independence.

These initiatives align with the Mellon Foundation’s commitment to supporting historically under-resourced organizations and advancing new models that reflect a holistic approach to social and cultural change.

Please direct inquiries to ACASA President Amanda M. Maples at president@acasaonline.org.

About the Arts Council of the African Studies Association (ACASA)

The Arts Council of the African Studies Association (ACASA) is the leading U.S.-based professional organization dedicated solely to the study and promotion of African and African Diaspora arts. Founded in 1981, ACASA’s mission is to foster greater understanding of African material and expressive culture in all its myriad forms and to encourage ongoing collaboration among artists, scholars, curators, museum professionals, students, and global communities. Through its core initiatives—including the Triennial Symposium on African Art, awards for teaching, curatorial and publication excellence, webinars, museum- and artist-centric resources, and its Collaboration, Collections, and Restitution Best Practices for North American Museums Holding African Objects (CCRBP) document—ACASA creates dynamic forums for exchange, supports the ethical stewardship and visibility of African art, and advances equity, access, and dialogue in the field. For more information about the organization, its activities, and its global membership, visit www.acasaonline.org.

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The Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, is now accepting applications for senior, visiting senior, and postdoctoral fellowships that begin in 2026. These residential appointments support research in the history, theory, and criticism of the visual arts and related disciplines of any period or geographical area.

Learn more about each opportunity, their requirements, and their deadlines here: https://www.nga.gov/research/casva/fellowships.html

See Candidate’s Full Statements and Access Voting Portal

Voting for new members of the Board of Directors is open through 19 August 2025. ACASA members in good standing (with active memberships) are eligible to vote. Election results will be communicated via membership email.

Five elected candidates will serve for an approximately 3-year term as Members-at-Large (ending ASA 2028). The current board will appoint a President–Elect/VP from the elected candidates (to be ratified electronically by the membership) who will succeed Amanda M. Maples as President at the end of her term of office (Triennial 2027). For more information regarding the structure and duties of the board, please consult the by-laws.

Position Description:
Members-at-large are full members of the ACASA Board of Directors. Duties include: attending meetings and participating in board deliberations; serving on committees as needed; and fulfilling vacant board member roles or other duties as assigned.
Empty board positions looking to be filled include Vice President/President-Elect, Treasurer-Elect, Website Editor, and two Members-At-Large.

ACASA Board Candidates 2025–2028:

• Olayemi Tosin Ajayi
• Olaoluwa Ayokunmi
• Delinda Collier
• Paul Cooper
• Alice Korkor Ebeheakey
• Aindrea Emelife
• Blaise Gundu Gbaden
• Kiagho Kilonzo
• Gontse Mathabathe
• Ashley V. Miller
• Olusegun Quadri

You can find the candidates’ statements, CVs, and the link to the voting portal here: https://www.acasaonline.org/2025-board-election/

Beyond the “Mask:” Towards a New Paradigm of Collecting and Displaying African Art in U.S. Museums

Wednesday, May 14th, from 12:00 PM -1:30 PM CST | 10AM PST | 1 PM EST | 6 PM WAT/BST | 7 PM SAST/CEST | 8 PM EAT/EEST

Join us on Wednesday, May 14, for a thought-provoking webinar discussion that examines how museums can reshape their approaches to collecting and displaying African art through ethical transparency, inclusive narratives, and critical practices. Inspired by the New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations exhibition (April 4–August 10, 2025) at the New Orleans Museum of Art, this panel explores case studies that honor artist agency, cultural authenticity, and global accountability by centering the voices of African artists and their communities. Beyond celebration, this dialogue challenges us to rethink, reimagine, and drive actionable change toward a more just and accountable future for African art curation.

This virtual event, presented in partnership between the Arts Council of the African Studies Association and the New Orleans Museum of Art, is free with registration. Registration via the link below is required to receive webinar credentials before the event. Registration closes one hour before the event.

Register Here

Panelists:

Aindrea Emelife is a Nigerian-British curator and art historian specializing in modern and contemporary art, with a focus on questions around colonial and decolonial histories in Africa, transnationalism and the politics of representation. Emelife has been the inaugural Curator of MOWAA (Museum of West African Art) in Benin City, Nigeria since 2023. Emelife is on the Board of Trustees for New Curators.

Genevieve Hill-Thomas is an art history professor at Ringling College of Art and Design where she combines her love of African art history with her background as a textile artist. Occasionally she works with local museums that hold collections of African art. She volunteers with the nonprofit Florida Craft Art in St. Petersburg, Florida to teach crochet to local middle school students during the school year, and with DIMA, a non-profit art school, in Niamey, Niger to help faculty and students in the weaving department.

Jean Borgatti is Consulting Curator – Global Africa, First Peoples – N. America & Oceania at Fitchburg Art Museum and long term affiliate of Clark University and Boston University. She is one of the pioneering theorists and scholars committed to recognizing, documenting, and advocating for the individuality of masquerade artists. Dr. Borgatti’s research and advisory role will connect some of the earliest scholarship in individual masquerade artists to that of this project, which puts a contemporary spin on her foundational work.

Jordan A. Fenton is associate professor of art history at Miami University, with an emphasis on the visual and performed expression of Nigerian masquerade arts, secret societies, esoteric knowledge systems, funerary rituals and installations, dress, economics and ways in which so-called “traditional” arts and artists operate in metropolitan cities. At Miami, Fenton teaches introductions on non-Western art and courses and seminars exploring Africa and its Diaspora. He is the co-curator of the New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations author of Masquerade and Money in Urban Nigeria: The Case of Calabar (University of Rochester Press, 2022).  

Paul R. Davis is Curator of Collections at the Menil Collection in Houston, TX. His academic research and publications focus on the visual arts and sociopolitical histories from the colonial and post-independence eras (18th–20th century) in West Africa. He was an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Centre for the Creative Arts of Africa at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa and a Fulbright-Hays DDRA Fellow based in Mali (West Africa). Davis was a co-director of the Collections Analysis Collaborative (CAC), an educational and object-based research initiative on the Menil’s ancient Mediterranean holdings with Rice University and University of Houston Clear Lake. His exhibition projects at the Menil have included ReCollecting Dogon (2017), Mapa Wiya (Your Map’s Not Needed): Australian Aboriginal Art from the Fondation Opale (2019), Enchanted: Visual Histories of the Central Andes (2021), Samuel Fosso: African Spirits (2022), Art of the Cameroon Grassfields, A Living Heritage in Houston (2023), and A Surrealist Wunderkammer (2024).

Please reach out to Caroline Bastian, ACASA Admin, with any questions at bastian@acasaonline.org.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Arts Council of the African Studies Association (ACASA) Releases Best Practice Guidelines for Provenance Research and Restitution

New Resource Emphasizes Collaboration with African Institutions and Communities

Responding to an urgent and growing need for guidance on ethical stewardship of African collections in museums, the Arts Council of the African Studies Association (ACASA) has produced best practice guidelines for provenance research and restitution. The new resource, the first-ever for museums in the United States, emphasizes collaboration and communication with Africa-based peers, descendant communities, and other knowledge-holding constituents in assessing and determining the futures of collections. Developed with support from the Mellon Foundation, this foundational document is publicly accessible and recommended for sharing with all U.S. collecting institutions.

The guidelines were developed over a three-year period by a working group of over seventy specialists from the United States, Africa, and Europe. The initiative began in 2021 and was informed by ongoing dialogue with Africa-based institutions, professionals, and community members. The final document, ratified by ACASA in August 2024, encourages museums to uphold their ethical responsibilities in their stewardship of African objects, in addition to any legal requirements. This includes promptly responding to return concerns and claims. It also recommends that U.S. museums demonstrate an institutional commitment to:

• transparency regarding collection holdings and information about object histories
• working with interested parties on the African continent on collaborations, including returns, within this field-wide framework of accepted practice
• prioritizing research on collection holdings
• disseminating information about African arts collections in accordance with ethical computing standards

The resource includes guidance on provenance research, criteria and parameters for determining research priorities, case studies with recommendations, and resource material on relevant law and policy precedents.

Chika Okeke-Agulu (Princeton University), a leading international voice on African restitution, hailed the guidelines as “the most ambitious initiative ever by ACASA.” He added, “In its depth and scope, I can say that no one in the U.S. has gone this far to provide a compelling road map, a useful pathway to the complex matter of restitution and repatriation of looted African cultural heritage.”

Erica P. Jones (Fowler Museum at UCLA) and Amanda Gilvin (Davis Museum at Wellesley College), who co-led the working group that produced the document, expressed gratitude to the “many ACASA members who sought ways to honor past makers, descendent communities, and diaspora communities by embracing the push toward ethical returns. After over a century of requests, negotiations, and debates, we hope that this guidance will be an important step towards reshaping museological practice.”

ACASA’s current President, Paul Basu (University of Oxford), emphasized that the publication is only part of ACASA’s ongoing work to expand dialogues and networks with African institutions and communities. “The need to put ethics at the center of scholarship and collections stewardship is clear, and ACASA is well placed to play a central role in advocating for, sharing information and advice, and even coordinating training in all matters relating to provenance research and restitution. This important work is a key part of ACASA’s future vision.” As an immediate next step, ACASA will work toward the creation of a digital resource that will help Africa-based institutions and communities connect with African objects in U.S. museum collections.

ACASA is a U.S.-based professional organization, with over 1,800 members worldwide. For more than four decades, ACASA has championed African arts scholarship, connecting artists, researchers, curators and collections on the African continent, in North America, Europe and beyond. For more information about ACASA and how to join, visit acasaonline.org or contact ACASA administrator, Caroline Bastian Retcher at bastian@acasaonline.org.

Due date: Nov. 1, 2024

The Arts Council of the African Studies Association (ACASA) seeks expressions of interest from members whose institutional contacts can host our Twentieth Triennial Symposium on African Art in 2027. Institutions can be a university, museum, research center, or other venue appropriate for a conference of about 450 participants. Recent Triennial Symposia have taken place at DePaul University and the Art Institute of Chicago (2024), the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon (2017); the Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York (2014); and the University of California, Los Angeles (2011). For more information, visit https://www.acasaonline.org/past-triennials/.

The Triennial Symposium is the premier forum for presenting cutting-edge research on the arts and expressive cultures of Africa and its Diasporas. It brings together scholars, artists, teachers, students, museum specialists, collectors, gallerists and other enthusiasts to advance research, knowledge, and collaboration. The Symposium features a rich program of panels, workshops, roundtables, and cultural activities.  It includes a full day devoted to museum professionals. At the Triennial Symposium, ACASA presents awards for leadership, curatorial excellence, and the best books and dissertations in the field of African art histories.

As the primary event through which we engage with each other to share our passion for African Arts, the Symposium is a forum for advancing ACASA’s mission: to facilitate communication among people working to advance knowledge about the arts of Africa and its Diasporas; to promote greater understanding of African material and expressive culture in its many forms; and to encourage contact and collaboration with African and Diaspora artists and scholars.

In order to host the Symposium, venues need to accommodate the following over a five-day period:

1)    Five or six rooms of varying size that can seat between 25 to 50 people.

2)    An auditorium that seats about 300 for a keynote and an awards ceremony.

3)    Projection capabilities in all rooms.

4)    Common spaces for breaks and lunch service.

You will be able to rely on the ACASA Board and committees to support your work every step of the way. The Board helps form all Triennial committees, fundraises for the Symposium, and contracts with local vendors to supply all necessary materials.

We emphasize that this call is not for full-fledged proposals to host, but merely letters of interest. Please submit these to Caroline Bastian Retcher, ACASA Arts Administrator and Project Manager (bastian@acasaonline.org) by November 1, 2024.

We will provide further details to all interested parties, with full proposals to be submitted by Feb. 1, 2025.