A Frame of Mind

Searching for his origins, Glenn comes face to face with a haunting image of slavery in America: a tiny photograph of a cotton plantation takes him back to the invention of photography as a source for truth-telling today. The scene testifies to the long shadow of slavery and the slow, systematic stripping away of equities that have ruptured Black relationships to the land. Can that same photograph also collapse time and place and regenerate links between generations? This episode brings our season to a close, but new seeds have come of it. To sow them is to shape a new chapter in our story.GuestsApril Watson, senior curator of photography at the Nelson-Atkins, welcomes us into the museum’s storage vault to share a singular photograph and its significance to the American experience.Ryan Tenney, artist-farmer, digs into the root causes behind dramatic changes in Black farming and his sense of responsibility to continue the story.HostGlenn A. North is an award-winning poet and community leader based in Kansas City, Missouri. He is currently the Director of Inclusive Learning & Creative Impact at The Museum of Kansas City. He has previously served at the Bruce R. Watkins Cultural Center, American Jazz Museum, and The Black Archives of Mid-America. Having earned an M.F.A. in Poetry from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Glenn also conducts Ekphrastic poetry workshops and uses poetry to address issues of social justice, diversity, equity, inclusion, and self-empowerment.

What’s in a name? It gets complicated when Glenn sits down with professional genealogist Kathleen Brandt to trace his ancestors. Looking at his family history under the microscope, Glenn turns to poetryand a sculpture of a young girl peering through a telescope to process some disorienting findings. This all leads to acclaimed filmmaker Kevin Willmott and what it means to break free from the bondage of history to imagine new stories and engage in creative acts of reclamation.GuestsKathleen Brandt, professional international genealogist and consultant, reveals her research into Glenn’s personal ancestry.Kevin Willmott, filmmaker and Academy-award winning screenwriter, illuminates the power of art to tell stories and project visions of possible futures and alternate realities.HostGlenn A. North is an award-winning poet and community leader based in Kansas City, Missouri. He is currently the Director of Inclusive Learning & Creative Impact at The Museum of Kansas City. He has previously served at the Bruce R. Watkins Cultural Center, American Jazz Museum, and The Black Archives of Mid-America. Having earned an M.F.A. in Poetry from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Glenn also conducts Ekphrastic poetry workshops and uses poetry to address issues of social justice, diversity, equity, inclusion, and self-empowerment.

Being present in the moment means giving your full attention to something or someone, but the present is always suspended in tension between the weight of the past and the promise of the future. In Episode 3, Glenn revels in Black joy in the presence of Bisa Butler’s intensely vibrant quilt Kindred. With artists Kaitlyn B. Jones and Camry Ivory, Glenn pulls at the threads of slavery and pieces together how its legacy makes us all kindred—part of one large dysfunctional, extended family.GuestsKaitlyn B. Jones, artist, curator, writer, and archivist, discusses the extraordinary stories of ordinary Black experiences and how museums can hold multiple truths at once.Camry Ivory, visual musician and inventor of the instrument Coloratura, introduces Afrofuturism and the power of hope.HostGlenn A. North is an award-winning poet and community leader based in Kansas City, Missouri. He is currently the Director of Inclusive Learning & Creative Impact at The Museum of Kansas City. He has previously served at the Bruce R. Watkins Cultural Center, American Jazz Museum, and The Black Archives of Mid-America. Having earned an M.F.A. in Poetry from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Glenn also conducts Ekphrastic poetry workshops and uses poetry to address issues of social justice, diversity, equity, inclusion, and self-empowerment.

In Episode 2, Glenn introduces us to Mound Magician by Radcliffe Bailey. Shaped like a baseball diamond, the large assemblage is filled with details that reference Black history and culture. Bob Kendrick, President of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, takes the field for a lively conversation with Glenn. Using Mound Magician as the wind-up, they explore the impact of the Negro League, Kansas City’s role in shaping race relations—and baseball, and trade stories about legends like Jackie Robinson and Satchel Paige.GuestsBob Kendrick, president of Kansas City’s Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, coaches us on the history of civil rights and social justice in America through the story of baseball.Israel Alejandro Garcia Garcia, artist and gallery owner, discusses his practice as a means of constructing identity.HostGlenn A. North is an award-winning poet and community leader based in Kansas City, Missouri. He is currently the Director of Inclusive Learning & Creative Impact at The Museum of Kansas City. He has previously served at the Bruce R. Watkins Cultural Center, American Jazz Museum, and The Black Archives of Mid-America. Having earned an M.F.A. in Poetry from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Glenn also conducts Ekphrastic poetry workshops and uses poetry to address issues of social justice, diversity, equity, inclusion, and self-empowerment.

In Episode 1, Glenn North confronts what it means to be a Black man in America in 2026. Can art help us grasp who we are and how we’ve ended up here? Glenn thinks so. He introduces us to a favorite work by the Ghanaian artist El Anatsui, Dusasa 1. Like many of El Anatsui’s works, this is a large tapestry made up of battered pieces of metal with painful associations, held together by fragile links. Glenn then takes us on his own journey to Ghana, Africa, in conversation with his friend and traveling companion, Khyra Chiles. Did Glenn find the answers he seeks on this trip?GuestsKhyra Chiles, friend and fellow traveler of Glenn North, reflects on her experience visiting Ghana for the first time.Julián Zugazagoitia, Director and CEO of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, offers art and museums as pathways for asking brave questions.HostGlenn A. North is an award-winning poet and community leader based in Kansas City, Missouri. He is currently the Director of Inclusive Learning & Creative Impact at The Museum of Kansas City. He has previously served at the Bruce R. Watkins Cultural Center, American Jazz Museum, and The Black Archives of Mid-America. Having earned an M.F.A. in Poetry from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Glenn also conducts Ekphrastic poetry workshops and uses poetry to address issues of social justice, diversity, equity, inclusion, and self-empowerment.

This is our last episode, but it’s not the end of the story. We go back a few years to when the Nelson-Atkins started to make some moves to celebrate Juneteenth, and why the museum needed to take a breath and listen. We stumble across a performance of the Kansas City 2Step in the museum’s lobby, with Black joy filling the air. And we dream about what could be next.Featuring Sonié Ruffin, Alvin Brooks, Makeda Paterson, Kreshaun McKinney, and De Barker.Learn more about our guests, see the art in this episode, and read a transcript of this episode here.

We don’t know the names of the people whose hands and skill literally built the 1933 Nelson-Atkins building, but we know what some of them look like. This episode begins with a photograph from the museum’s archive and dreams about stories that haven’t been recorded. That gets us thinking about what it feels like to go to an art museum and see people who look like you, and one exhibition at the Nelson-Atkins that really broke some ground for Kansas Citians in telling stories about Black American life. If a museum is a house of stories, it’s always under construction—and maybe it can change the rules.Featuring Angel Tucker, Muenfua Lewis, Justin Ikerionwu, Sonié Ruffin, Chiluba Musonda, Congressman Emmanuel Cleaver II, Erik Stafford, Alvin Brooks, and Wanda Battle.Learn more about our guests, see the art in this episode, and read a transcript of this episode here.

The original Nelson-Atkins building has 23 panels carved on the outside, high up and kind of hard to see—really see. They tell a story of settler colonialism in the Midwest, filled with harmful stereotypes of Indigenous people. The story is fiction, but it’s told like monumental history. In this episode, we look closer at these public images with Native artists Mona Cliff, Alex Ponca Stock, Lucky Garcia, and Alex Kimball Williams. Learn more about our guests, see the art in this episode, and read a transcript here.

Why do Kansas City and the Nelson-Atkins look the way they do? In this episode, we rewind to the beginning of the 1900s. Kansas City was booming from a Cow Town to the Paris of the Plains, and a few city planners and real estate developers saw opportunity. We meet J.C. Nichols, a real estate developer who perfected racially restricted covenants and made big decisions about the Nelson-Atkins when it opened. Along the way, host Glenn North takes us on a Sunday drive.Featuring Congressman Emanuel Cleaver II, Chiluba Musonda, Erik Stafford, Angel Tucker, and Jake Wagner.Learn more about our guests, see the art in this episode, and read a transcript here.

For host Glenn North, you can’t talk about anything in the United States—museums, barbecue, football, whatever—without talking about race. It’s always there in our shared history and in our current moment. In this episode, we get to know the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art with Glenn. It’s at the heart of Kansas City, Missouri, in the heartland of the United States. It’s a place that can inspire pride and poetry. But does everyone feel welcome inside?Learn more about our host, see the art in this episode, and read a transcript here.

A new podcast taking a hard look at race in America through the lens of one art museum, hosted by Glenn North. From The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.