Research Interests

• collaborative, community-based, public, and socially engaged art
• Indigenous art, culture, identity, and representation
• disability art, accessibility, and multisensory learning
• activism and social justice in contemporary art

Significant & Ongoing Projects

Sydney Pursel returned to the Spencer Museum as the first Curator for Public Practice in 2022 after previously serving as the Global Indigenous Art graduate intern from 2016–2017. In this new role, Pursel is initiating ways to involve community in research and curatorial processes and incorporate community feedback in exhibitions, programs, and events. Pursel is the co-PI for the I­n ‘zhúje ‘waxóbe/Sacred Red Rock project funded by the Mellon Foundation, which will facilitate the return of a 28-ton boulder to the Kaw Nation and re-envision what is now known as Robinson Park in Lawrence, Kansas. She serves on the Native Faculty and Staff Council, the FNSA Powwow and Indigenous Cultures Festival Committee, and the Indigenous Arts Initiative program. She is an enrolled member of the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska (ITKN), chair of the ITKN Arts and Culture Committee, and vice-chair of the ITKN Powwow Committee. She also oversees the Spencer Museum’s graduate intern program, providing a unique perspective as a former participant. As an intern, Pursel served as a project leader co-curating The Object Feels, a tactile exhibition utilizing replicas of work from the Spencer’s collection made by KU students focusing on accessibility through multisensory learning. She assisted with curation and wrote labels for Separate and Not Equal: A History of Race and Education in America and served as the project coordinator for Native American and African American Education in Kansas, 1830-1960, an NEH Landmarks of American History and Culture workshop for K–12 teachers. Pursel also served as the Graduate Research Consultant for a Critical Perspectives on Museums course where she advised students on a collaborative grant-writing project.