Curation as Care: Reflections from the USC’s We Are Civic Media Book Launch w/ NOMMO
This past weekend, at Los Angeles’ Underground Museum, NOMMO joined a vibrant gathering of artists, civic media practitioners, and scholars at the We Are Civic Media book launch: Afterwords: An Evening of Ideas, a milestone moment celebrating storytelling as a civic force. Powered by the Macarthur Foundation, the fellowship, like the event, brought together those working at the intersection of narrative, equity, and democracy to explore how media and culture shape collective belonging.
During the program, NOMMO’s Chief Curator, Tyree Boyd-Pates, shared reflections on museum curation as a practice of care — one that holds space for truth-telling, intergenerational dialogue, and radical imagination. He underscored that care in this context is not sentimental; it is structural. It asks institutions to center humanity, to honor Black life fully, and to transform how histories are told.
Boyd-Pates also spoke to the importance of supporting Black institutions and Black curators as architects of new worlds. Their labor extends beyond preservation; it’s worldbuilding, rooted in the belief that culture is a blueprint for the future. When Black cultural workers are resourced and supported, entire ecosystems of meaning, memory, and possibility thrive.
The We Are Civic Media gathering reaffirmed NOMMO’s mission: to advance narrative as infrastructure through cultural strategy, storytelling, and civic imagination. The night was filled with deep dialogue, laughter, and collective affirmation that media and culture remain essential to democracy.
NOMMO extends gratitude to the We Are Civic Media authors, organizers, and participants for convening a space that honors narrative stewardship as a public good.
As we reflect, we’re reminded that storytelling, whether in a museum, on a page, or in a neighborhood, is how we practice freedom.
Curating for Black Audiences: NOMMO’s Chief Curator Featured in Getty’s Balthazar Publication
There’s a special pride in walking into a library, heading to the art section, and seeing a book you authored on the shelf. For NOMMO’s chief curator, Tyree Boyd-Pates, that moment happened on the second floor of the Los Angeles Public Library when he picked up Balthazar: A Black African King in Medieval and Renaissance Art (Getty Publications, 2023) to read his essay and contributions.
Featuring historians like Henry Louis Gates, Andrea Achi, Kristin Collins, and Bryan Keene, this book is more than just a publication; it is a tangible result of the museum’s consultation work for the 2019 Getty Museum exhibition of the same name. His contributions included fact-checking the historicity and contemporary cultural relevance, shaping the narrative, narrating the exhibition’s audio tour, and being featured in the museum's blog.
Featuring historians like Henry Louis Gates, Andrea Achi, Kristin Collins, and Bryan Keene, this book is more than just a publication; it is a tangible result of the museum’s consultation work for the 2019 Getty Museum exhibition of the same name. His contributions included fact-checking the historicity and contemporary cultural relevance, shaping the narrative, narrating the exhibition’s audio tour, and being featured in the museum's blog.
The Adoration of the Magi, from a book of hours (text in Latin), Provence, France, about 1480–90, Georges Trubert. The J. Paul Getty Museum
Holding this book in a local library represents more than authorship; it embodies the effort to provide accessible, accurate, and reframed historical narratives for the public, especially Black audiences.
Los Angeles Central Library, August 2025
In his essay in the book’s afterword, "Curating Black History with Black Audiences in Mind," our chief curator emphasizes the importance of centering Black viewers in museums and exhibitions. Too often, Black audiences encounter narratives that do not align with their understanding of their own political history and education, excluding them from their own historical narrative.
Exhibitions like Balthazar are essential in reclaiming space and elevating Black audiences from the margins to the center of their own narratives, affirming their role in global art history. Balthazar also ties into broader cultural moments, such as 2022’s Beyoncé Knowles-Carter’s Renaissance album and world tour, which celebrate Black contributions during the same period. Similar to Beyoncé’s album and world tour, the exhibition, book, and essay above highlight the notable absence of Black figures during the medieval and Renaissance eras, repositioning and reclaiming them to be the heart of cultural rebirths and artistic renaissances periods.
Beyonce’s Renaissance Album Cover, 2022. For select vinyl releases, the artwork features Luca Giordano's 1690 painting La Conversion de Saint Paul behind Beyoncé atop a disco ball horse.
Making scholarship like this accessible in local libraries allows emerging art lovers, students, and historians to engage with the truth of Black presence in global history, a mission aligned with NOMMO’s core values: amplifying Black and African diasporic voices and ensuring they are seen, centered, and celebrated in cultural spaces. For our chief curator and NOMMO alike, seeing this book on the library shelf is more than recognition; it’s a reminder that representation in history and art is not just necessary, it’s transformative.
For a deeper understanding of Black Magi within the exhibit, read the exhibition checklist and accompanying text.