Onyx Fine Arts Collective

Sandra D. Jackson-DuMont

Sandra D. Jackson-DuMont is the Kayla Skinner Deputy Director of Education and Public Programs/Adjunct Curator at the Seattle Art Museum (SAM) where she directs the educational and public programs for the Museum’s three venues (a 9 acre sculpture park, an Asian Art Museum and 268,000 sq. ft general museum.) She oversees the interpretation of the Museum’s collection and exhibitions, while engaging broad audiences through the development, implementation and promotion of a diverse cross-section of innovative educational, film and public programming. The following areas are also under Jackson-Dumont’s purview:

Seattle Art Museum Gallery, Art Sales and Rental, Library Services, Community Affairs and the Volunteer Department. She is also the lead curator on the newly created Gwendolyn Knight and Jacob Lawrence Gallery located the expanded Downtown site.

Prior to her appointment at SAM, Jackson-Dumont was the Director of Education & Public Programs at The Studio Museum in Harlem and worked at the Whitney Museum of American Art among other cultural organizations. She was a Helena Rubinstein Curatorial Fellow at the Whitney Independent Study Program from 1996-97 and one of twenty-eight senior management museum professionals accepted to the 2002 Getty Leadership Institute/ Museum Management Institute. Jackson-Dumont was selected to visit Paris with the French American Foundation to discuss exemplary multidisciplinary cultural production. She was a member of a delegation traveling as a part of the official U.S. participation in the Dakar Biennale of Contemporary African Art in June 2004. She also attended the 2006 Dakar (Senegal) Biennale with an international group of arts administrators to participate in a series of discussions about artist residencies. Most recently, Jackson-Dumont was appointed to serve on the U.S. Department of State Federal Advisory Committee for International Exhibitions (FACIE). Composed of curators, museum directors, artists and other experts in American contemporary art, FACIE advises on proposals received for official U.S. participation in major international exhibitions (e.g. Venice Biennale, the Dakar Biennale and the Sao Paulo Bienal.)

Jackson-Dumont has worked with colleagues to redefine museums as cultural partners to the school system helping to restore and sustain arts based education in public schools. These multi-session school collaborations have paired teaching artists, core discipline teachers, and museum educators to develop innovative/integrated school curricula. These efforts have also included long term partnerships between schools and museums; professional development for teachers, artists and administrators; opening doors for high school students exploring arts careers.

Jackson-Dumont has organized numerous exhibitions, lectures, symposia, and education initiatives and is an independent curator/writer. She holds a BS and an MA in Art History. Her master’s thesis focused on the use of photography as a tool to construct images of African Americans. She has been a guest lecturer, curator and essayist for projects at numerous museums, cultural organization institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art @ Champion, New York University and Harvard University, The Rush Arts Gallery. Until recently, she was on faculty in the Graduate Program at the Rhode Island School of Design and in the Photography and Imaging Department at New York University, Tisch School of the Arts.

Jackson-Dumont has extensive experience building bridges between museums and non-traditional art-going communities. Her work with contemporary art/artists, youth and arts in education school/museum based learning has been earmarked “model work.” She is most interested in issues of accessibility and ways that art and culture can serve as points of entry for discussions about history, identity, community and explorative processes. Her multi-disciplinary approach to education and public programs has allowed her to invite the participation of compelling thinkers/cultural producers of varied interests including the Jessica Davis, PhD of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, noted actors Ozzie Davis and Ruby Dee, celebrated playwrights August Wilson and Suzan Lori-Parks, world renown dancers Katherine Dunham, Bill T. Jones and Ronald K. Brown, and a host of prominent and emerging visual artists. Jackson-Dumont’s interest in literature inspired her to develop an author series that brought emerging and established writers together. Sandra D.

Jackson-Dumont has also served on funding and selection panels for the National Endowment for the Arts, the Center for Arts Education, the Getty Leadership Institute, The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, The New York State Council on the Arts, and The Bronx Council on the Arts among others. She has written about numerous artists including Gwendolyn Knight, Jacob Lawrence, Leonardo Drew, Radcliffe Bailey, Mickalene Thomas and Kojo Griffin.

All content appearing on this website does so with the consent of the artists or copyright holders. No image or information displayed on this site may be reproduced, transmitted or copied without ONYX's written permission. Webmaster: Esther Ervin.