A Frame of Mind

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.