Seminar: Lewanika's Workshop and the Vision of Lozi Arts: Establishing and Maintaining an Identity in Western Zambia, 1880 - 1980

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 and written the catalogues for the exhibitions, Artists in Dialogue: António Ole and Aimé Mpane and Artists in Dialogue II: Sandile Zulu and Henrique Oliveira, selected as one of the top-10 2011 not-to-miss exhibitions by The Washington Post and accompanied by an interactive mobile application. Currently she is working on the major traveling exhibition, Earth Matters: Land as Material and Metaphor in the Arts of Africa, that will open April 22, 2013.  It will be accompanied by a scholarly book published by Monacelli Press.  Her essays and scholarly papers have appeared in or are forthcoming from: Africa Today, The Art Papers, Collections, Journal of Art Historiography, and Museum Anthropology.  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 the Smithsonian Secretary’s Award for Excellence.