Transparency for the Art Museum Collection: Qualifying and Quantitative Approaches

About the Project

The Vanderbilt University Museum of Art is nearing the conclusion of a yearslong inventory of its 12,000-object collection. As the collection became searchable in the fall of 2024, fellows worked with VUMA staff to better understand what the museum owns and how to make our collection transparent to Vanderbilt and a larger audience in Nashville and beyond. Using statistical analysis and data visualization, fellows examined how the VUMA collection is composed and helped to identify opportunities for its future. Fellows consulted on how to present this information, what quantitative analysis can (and can’t) tell us about the museum, and how the grammar they used to describe artworks can limit this work.

Mentor

Rachel Kreiter

Fellows

Simran Pirani; Kevin Pasquette

Project

Coming soon!