Learning Exchange Returns to Hauser & Wirth New York, 18th Street

In the roundtable conversation amongst colleagues, leaders from the Queens Museum, The Drawing Center, Brooklyn Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Studio Museum in Harlem discussed community programs and best practices for ensuring and evaluating their impact on learners and communities.  
 
Participants were later invited to spread out within the gallery and continue discussion around key questions from the panel discussion.  

Invited panelists that share the gallery’s passion for learning included Brooklyn Museum’s Director of Community Engagement and Partnerships, Laval Bryant-Quigley, The Drawing Center’s Director of Education + Community Programs, Aimee Good, The Studio Museum in Harlem’s Director of Education, Chloe Hayward, Queens Museum’s Director of Education & Community Engagement, Kimaada Le Gendre, and Whitney Museum of American Art’s Helena Rubinstein Chair of Education, Cris Scorza. 

About the speakers

Laval Bryant-Quigley  
Director of Community Engagement & Partnerships, Brooklyn Museum 

Laval Bryant-Quigley is a passionate advocate for New York’s vibrant culture, with a rich background that perfectly blends experience and expertise. She began her journey at the prestigious Calhoun School on a scholarship before earning her business degree from Brooklyn College. Her love for strategic thinking led her to obtain special certifications in Business Strategy from McKinsey & Company and Cornell University, focusing on Marketing Strategy. Throughout her career, Laval has earned accolades for her impactful contributions, including the NYC Women in Tourism award in the Cultural Institution category. Her communication skills and leadership shone during her time as the Manager of Digital Audio Programming and Digital Media at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Now at the Brooklyn Museum, Laval channels her energy into community engagement as the Director of Community Engagement and Partnerships within the innovative Learning and Social Impact department. She leads initiatives that build connections and promote social progress, with a keen focus on economic development in historically underserved neighborhoods. By creating partnerships between cultural institutions and launching Museum on Wheels mobile program, Laval is dedicated to bringing the museum experience to all corners of Brooklyn. With her extensive network, she is committed to amplifying diverse voices and creating inclusive spaces that foster positive change in society. 

Aimee Good  
Director of Education + Community Programs, The Drawing Center 

Aimee Good (born Houlton, Maine, Unceded Wabanaki Territory) is the Director of Education, Community + Public Programs at The Drawing Center.  She whole-heartedly produces a roster of educational engagement to welcome annually over 3,500 participants from K-12 students and university groups, hands-on artist-led drawing workshops in Spanish, American Sign Language and English for Language Learners; and accessible collaborative workshops in partnership with community groups. She gratefully manages and mentors interns and fellows to support all departments within the institution and produces all exhibition-related public programs featuring the participation of leading artists, writers, critics and performers encouraging audiences to engage in drawing’s role in contemporary culture, the future of art and creative thought.  

From 2006 to 2017, Good directed, curated and produced The Big Draw and DrawNow! series of site specific artist-led public participatory events in partnership with various New York cultural institutions including: arts>Brookfield, Battery Park Conservancy, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New Museum’s biannual IDEAS CITY, River to River Festival, Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, StreetLab and Wave Hill– audiences served over 25,000 participants. 

Prior to working at The Drawing Center, Aimee taught as a museum educator with MoMA, Cooper-Hewitt, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art; served as a web producer at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia; managed the Foundation for Partnerships in Boston; ran an art gallery; and freelanced as a textbook art editor. She continues her practice as a socially-engaged artist working in organic grains economies and as a member of the Ash Tree Protection Collaboration Across Wabanakik (APCAW).   

Chloe Hayward 
Director of Education, Studio Museum  

Chloe Hayward is an educator, cultural producer, and art therapist based in New York. She is currently the Director of Education at the Studio Museum in Harlem, and a graduate professor in the Creative Arts Therapy Department at the School of Visual Arts and Syracuse University. Her work exists at the intersection of art therapy and art education and applies the power of the creative arts process to heal, bring awareness and promote social change, equity, and liberation. Her career in Museum Leadership spans twenty-five years, and she is committed to providing experiences grounded in empowerment and creativity, sharing transformative spaces in and with community through art. 

Kimaada Le Gendre 
Director of Education & Community Engagement, Queens Museum  

Kimaada is the Director of Education & Community Engagement at the Queens Museum, where she leads educational and community programs grounded in social justice, accessibility and culturally sustaining pedagogy. She oversees large-scale public and exhibition-based programs, creating initiatives that empower diverse communities. A former history and environmental studies teacher, Kimaada is passionate about shaping decolonized curricula that inspire change. 
 
In addition to her museum leadership, Kimaada is a best-selling author of 19 children’s books focused on cultural diversity, empowerment and environmental issues.  She contributed to the official Curriculum Guide for the film Till in 2022, reflecting her commitment to impactful educational content. 

Kimaada holds a Bachelor’s in English from Hunter College and a Master’s in Environmental Law & Policy from Vermont Law School. She was selected for art Equity’s BIPOC Leadership Circle in 2021 and was one of 18 art leaders chosen for NYFA’s Incubator for Executive Leaders of Color. In 2023, she was named one of the Power Players in Education by Politics NY and AM Metro New York. Her leadership has earned her positions on prestigious boards, including the Museum Education Roundtable. 

Kimaada is currently pursuing a Doctor of Education (Ed.D.), with a focus on educational leadership and organizational innovation, while being recognized as a 2024 Women InPower Fellow. 

Cris Scorza 
Helena Rubinstein Chair of Education, Whitney Museum  

As the Helena Rubinstein Chair of Education at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Cris Scorza provides vision, leadership, and strategic direction for the Museum's education program. 
 
Scorza oversees interpretation and educational content; public programs and academic engagement; social impact and learning aligning school, youth, and family programs; and access and community programs. In addition, she plays an active role in Whitney's Latinx initiatives and the Museum's evolving Spanish-language bilingual efforts.  
 
Scorza creates programs for diverse communities that incite inquiry, build self-esteem, foster an interest in art history, and respond to a contemporary culture centered on equity and inclusion. 
 
Cris Scorza has worked in renowned New York institutions, including the New Museum, The Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Children's Museum, and ten years of audience development at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. At MCASD, Scorza and her team implemented a variety of programs tailored to the surrounding community, including collaborations with artists and arts organizations in the U.S./Mexico border region, leadership development for teens with an emphasis on social justice, and cutting-edge work with combat troops recovering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). 
 
She has curated social practice exhibitions and community-centered collaborations at MCASD, such as Oscar Romo: Recovered Stream (2020); To-Do • A Mending Project (2019); and Sanctuary Print Shop (2018). As an arts administrator, she developed and managed a range of exhibitions, including Photography in Mexico: Selections from the Collection (2013); Alvaro Blancarte: Marking the Present (2015), DELIMITATIONS: A Survey of the 1821 United States-Mexico Border (2016); and Papel Chicano Dos: Works of Paper from the Cheech Marin Collection (2016). She has also authored essays on Las Hermanas Iglesias, Ramiro Gomez, John Valadez, and Daniel Guzman. 
 
Scorza has served on professional and civic committees, including the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority Art Advisory Committee and the San Diego Civic Youth Ballet Diversity and Inclusion Advisory. She is also an adjunct professor at Baruch College, CUNY, in the Arts Administration Masters Program. 
 
Scorza, born in Mexico City, studied painting at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. She has a B.A. in arts administration and art history from Baruch College, CUNY, an M.A. in leadership in museum education from Bank Street College of Education, and a Diversity and Inclusion Certificate from Cornell University. 

–

All photos: onwhitewall.com