Image: Courtesy of NPI

Navy Pier Redesign Arts and Discovery Plan
Navy Pier, Inc.

Gonzales is a contributor to the Pier’s Arts and Discovery Plan, Working Group on History and Culture. The working groups are helping to shape the new programming plan for one of the top ten most popular destinations in the world (8-9 million annual visitors).

Museums and Civic Discourse: Past, Present & Emerging Futures
A Digital Compendium and Conversation – in progress 2015-2018

The 20th century marks museums’ gradual entrée into the work of supporting civic discourse. There is, however, no critical accounting of this history, no scholarly overview that can be used to contextualize and inform current deliberations over future paths that museum work in this area might take. Groups that are historically underrepresented are also underrepresented in the scholarly conversation about museums and civic discourse. The research project will address this gap and disseminate its work through an open-source online annotated bibliography in Zotero and a digital-first volume. Gonzales is co-principle investigator and facilitator for this project along with Clarissa Ceglio (Digital Humanities, UConn Digital Media Center), Jennifer Scott (Director, Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, University of Illinois), Nicole Ivy (American Alliance of Museums’ Center for the Future of Museums), and Robin Grenier (UConn, Neag School of Education).
See our working group's case statements and contribute to the conversation.

Evanston Art Center

Gonzales is co-chair of the Exhibitions Committee at the Evanston Art Center. For more information on the program of exhibitions, please visit the website

The African Presence in México: From Yanga to the Present
National Museum of Mexican Art, January 27 – September 3, 2006

The African Presence in México: From Yanga to the Present illuminates the last nearly 500 years during which afro-descendants have become a significant part of Mexico and Mexican culture. The project included three exhibitions and a set of public programs, and Gonzales sat on the Steering Committee.

In the Press:
> Animating Democracy
> Area Chicago
> Smithsonian [PDF 97k]

I Have Given the World My Songs by Elizabeth Catlett, 1948, Linocut, Sragow Gallery, 13 ½” x 10"

Who Are We Now? Roots, Resistance, and Recognition
National Museum of Mexican Art, January 27 – September 3, 2006

Gonzales curated the exhibition, Who Are We Now? Roots, Resistance, and Recognition, part of the larger African Presence project at the National Museum of Mexican Art (then Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum).
 
Who Are We Now? Roots, Resistance, and Recognition charted the history of the relationship between Mexicans and African Americans in the United States as well as the relationship between African Americans and the country of Mexico. It toured nationally for five years ending in 2010. The tour venues were: National Hispanic Cultural Center, Albuquerque, NM; California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA; African American Museum, Philadelphia, PA; Museo Alameda, San Antonio, TX; Oakland Museum, Oakland, CA; Smithsonian Institution Anacostia Community Museum, Washington, DC; DuSable Museum of African American History, Chicago, IL.
The museum produced a catalog that features my essay, also entitled Who Are We Now?

Food On the Move
Culinary Arts Museum at Johnson and Wales University, 2010

This project included an exhibition on food and travel and the Culinary Arts Museum as well as local and digital programming. See, for example, the blog that our programming team developed.

This project was one of the annual Public Humanities graduate student projects through the John Nicholas Brown Center for the Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage, and Gonzales was the project leader and co-curator.

Glenn Lutzky, Brown Daily Herald

Reimagining Columbus, Reimagining Columbus Day
Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, Brown University,
October 2010 – March 2011

Gonzales co-curated this exhibition to reflect on the history of Columbus Day at a time when Brown was changing its holiday from Columbus Day to Fall Break.

In the Press:
> The Brown Daily Herald
> In 2016, Brown renamed the holiday Indigenous People's Day

Fox Point Area, Providence, Rhode Island

Remember the Old Times:
Cape Verdean Community in Fox Point, 1920-1945
John Nicholas Brown Center, Brown University, 2009

This exhibition addressed the long history of the Cape Verdean community in the neighborhood of Fox Point in Providence. When the waterfront was redeveloped and the highway routed through this vibrant community, the community was displaced throughout the area. In this project, we reconnected personal histories with the history of specific locations in Providence and brought the community together to remember the neighborhood as it once was as well as how Cape Verdeans came to Providence. This project was one of the annual Public Humanities graduate student projects through the John Nicholas Brown Center for the Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage, and Gonzales was one of the co-curators.