Special Event: 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, January 24, 2026 at UMMA's Helmut Stern Auditorium. RSVP Required.

Join us for a powerful conversation between artist and curator Julie Ault and archivist Julie Herrada as we celebrate the opening of American Sampler: Activating the Archive, UMMA’s new landmark exhibition. Together, they’ll discuss how archival research, curatorial practice, and artistic vision come together in the exhibition to illuminate histories of dissent that continue to influence the social landscape of the United States.

American Sampler: Activating the Archive is a research-driven, immersive exhibition curated by MacArthur Fellow Julie Ault in UMMA’s Vertical Gallery, in collaboration with the Joseph A. Labadie Collection of anarchism, protest, and social movements housed in the U-M Library’s Special Collections Research Center. The exhibition centers on 1950s–1970s movements for Black freedom, civil rights, and antiwar activism, clarifying the aspirations and effects as well as the violent opposition these movements encountered. American Sampler invites visitors to examine how legacies of grassroots organizing and protest in U.S. history shape the present. This ambitious project is the inaugural collaboration of the new Labadie Collection and UMMA Fellowship Program.

Julie Ault is an artist and writer whose practice explores how histories are retold and their influence on the present. Working across exhibition-making, research, publication, and archiving, she examines how cultural production is shaped by and can intervene in social and political systems. Ault’s exhibitions include Paper Mirror: Nancy Spero (Museo Tamayo and MoMA PS1, 2018–19), Afterlife: a constellation (Whitney Biennial, 2014), and Cultural Economies: Histories from the Alternative Arts Movement (The Drawing Center, 1996). Her publications include Felix Gonzalez-Torres (2006), Come Alive: The Spirited Art of Sister Corita (2006), and DUETS: Julie Ault & David Deitcher in Conversation on William Olander (2021), among others. Ault was a founding member of the artists’ collaborative Group Material (1979–1996), whose exhibitions addressed critical issues, including AIDS Timeline (1989). In 2018 she was awarded the MacArthur Fellowship for “redefining the role of the artwork and the artist” through her multi-modal practice.

Julie Herrada is the Curator of the Joseph A. Labadie Collection at the University of Michigan’s Special Collections Research Center, overseeing materials on international social protest movements. In this role she introduces classes to the study of primary sources, curates exhibits, assists global researchers, and works to preserve and share overlooked histories. Highlights of her outreach include organizing the 50th anniversaries of the Port Huron Statement (2012) and the first Teach-In against the Vietnam War (2015). She has published book reviews and journal articles, including the widely cited Letters to the Unabomber. Her notable exhibitions include The Whole World Was Watching: Protest and Revolution in 1968; Soapboxers & Saboteurs: 100 Years of Wobbly Solidarity; and Joseph Labadie and His Gift to Michigan: A Legacy for the Masses.

Presented in partnership with the University of Michigan Museum of Art, on the opening of their new landmark exhibition American Sampler: Activating the Archive.

This project was made possible by a grant from the Arts Initiative at the University of Michigan.
Series presenting partners: Detroit PBS, ALL ARTS, and PBS Books. Media partner: Michigan Public.