Current Programming
All exhibition programming is free and open to the public. Due to limited seating RSVP is required.
Exhibition Lecture Series
Lana Obradovic, Ph.D. | Gerise Herndon, Ph.D. | Saints & Liars | Maja Ruznic | Samuel Bak
Bak to Basics: Chess for All Ages
March 1 | March 8 | March 15 | March 22 | March 29
Art Making
March 7 | March 28 | April 4 | April 18
Bak to Basics: Chess for All Ages - Sunday, March 1, 1 PM
Join us for a free chess program every Sunday in March. Participants will learn about chess in Samuel Bak’s paintings, engage in a brief history of chess, followed by open play. This program is designed for beginning and seasoned chess players. Please RSVP in pairs; limited to 12 attendees.
This is a FREE event, but due to limited seating preregistration is required.
Exhibition Lecture Series - Thursday, March 5, 6PM
Bosnia: Who Remembers? Who Denies?
This talk explores what it means to commemorate genocide in a society still divided, asking who is allowed to shape collective memory versus challenge it. By focusing on post-1996 Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dr. Lana Obradovic will address who remembers, who resists those memories, and why places like Srebrenica remain central and contested in public history.
This is a FREE event, but due to limited seating preregistration is required.
Speaker: Lana Obradovic, Ph.D.
Bio: Dr. Lana Obradovic is Director of the International Studies program, an Associate Professor of Political Science and the Director of the Intelligence Community Center of Academic Excellence at University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO). Dr. Obradovic also serves as the Academic Director of the BOLD Leadership Institute, funded by the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Dr. Obradovic’s book, Gender Integration in NATO Military Forces, won the ERGOMAS 2015 Best Book in Civil-Military Relations award.
Art Making - Saturday, March 7, 12 PM
Interwoven: Paper Weaving
Use works on display as inspiration in the exhibition and try your hand at creating a composite image using weaving or collage techniques. All materials provided. This is a FREE event, but due to limited seating preregistration is required.
Bak to Basics: Chess for All Ages - Sunday, March 8, 1 PM
Join us for a free chess program every Sunday in March. Participants will learn about chess in Samuel Bak’s paintings, engage in a brief history of chess, followed by open play. This program is designed for beginning and seasoned chess players. Please RSVP in pairs; limited to 12 attendees.
This is a FREE event, but due to limited seating preregistration is required.
Bak to Basics: Chess for All Ages - Sunday, March 15, 1 PM
Join us for a free chess program every Sunday in March. Participants will learn about chess in Samuel Bak’s paintings, engage in a brief history of chess, followed by open play. This program is designed for beginning and seasoned chess players. Please RSVP in pairs; limited to 12 attendees.
This is a FREE event, but due to limited seating preregistration is required.
Bak to Basics: Chess for All Ages - Sunday, March 22, 1 PM
Join us for a free chess program every Sunday in March. Participants will learn about chess in Samuel Bak’s paintings, engage in a brief history of chess, followed by open play. This program is designed for beginning and seasoned chess players. Please RSVP in pairs; limited to 12 attendees.
This is a FREE event, but due to limited seating preregistration is required.
::Rescheduled:: - Exhibition Lecture Series - Thursday, March 26, 6PM
Art from Trauma: Lessons from Listening to Genocide Survivors in Rwanda
Dr. Herndon will present on the work of memory and the transformative power of language and story to confront trauma and its haunting ability to shape minds and lives across generations. She will share her work of listening to Rwanda genocide survivors and how even in Nebraska we are connected to them, how we choose to acknowledge the human rights violations, and move towards peace and hope.
This is a FREE event, but due to limited seating preregistration is required.
Speaker: Gerise Herndon, Ph.D.
Bio: Dr. Gerise Herndon has been a professor of English and International Studies at Nebraska Wesleyan University for over 30 years. The author of Art from Trauma: Genocide and Healing Beyond Rwanda, she and Rwandan colleague Dr. Rangira Béa Gallimore led three intensive study abroad programs to Rwanda; she has also directed programs in Haiti and Mexico. In addition to publishing scholarship on African film and Caribbean women’s writing, she was awarded a Fulbright to teach at Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi, India.
Art Making - Saturday, March 28, 12 PM
Landscapes and Forms
After a tour of the exhibition create your imaginary place using cut forms and paints. All materials provided. This is a FREE event, but due to limited seating preregistration is required.
Bak to Basics: Chess for All Ages - Sunday, March 29, 1 PM
Join us for a free chess program every Sunday in March. Participants will learn about chess in Samuel Bak’s paintings, engage in a brief history of chess, followed by open play. This program is designed for beginning and seasoned chess players. Please RSVP in pairs; limited to 12 attendees.
This is a FREE event, but due to limited seating preregistration is required.
Art Making - Saturday, April 4, 12 PM
Roots: Create Your Memory Tree
Draw a family tree and add your favorite moments using paints, markers, or pencils. You can also write poems or short stories to include in your artwork. All materials provided. This is a FREE event, but due to limited seating preregistration is required.
Exhibtion Lecture Series - Tuesday, April 14, 7PM
In Conversation, Debórah Dwork and Elise Loehnen
Renowned Holocaust historian Debórah Dwork joins New York Times best-selling author and cultural commentator Elise Loehnen for a compelling conversation on rescue, morality, and the human choices that shaped history. Drawing from Dwork’s seminal scholarship, including Saints and Liars, and Loehnen’s work examining culture, ethics, and inner life, the evening explores how stories of aid, risk, and conscience continue to resonate today. Open to the public.
Speakers: Debórah Dwork, Ph.D and Elise Loehnen
Location: Strauss Performing Arts Center
This is a FREE event, but due to limited seating preregistration is required
Art Making - Saturday, April 18, 12 PM
United: A Collaborative Bak
Join us in creating a community banner! Think of things that make you hopeful and paint them on a canvas. All materials provided. This is a FREE event, but due to limited seating preregistration is required.
Exhibition Lecture Series - Thursday, May 14, 6PM
A Conversation with Maja Ruznic
Artist Maja Ruznic and Chief Curator Alexandra M. Cardon will discuss how art can build collective memory, the restorative and reflective power of nostalgia, and the function of the artwork as a gateway for conversations on difficult topics.
This is a FREE event, but due to limited seating preregistration is required.
Speaker: Maja Ruznic
Bio: Maja Ruznic (b. 1983, Bosnia and Herzegovina) is a New Mexico-based artist who paints diluted, out-of-focus figures and landscapes that explore nostalgia and childhood trauma and are influenced in part by war and the refugee experience. The ritualistic nature of her work reflects religious and mythological interests, including Slavic paganism and Shamanism. Ruznic’s work is in the collections of the Crocker Art Museum, CA; Dallas Museum of Art, TX ; EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Finland; Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, France; Portland Art Museum, OR; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY.
Exhibition Lecture Series - Saturday, June 6, 2PM
A Conversation with Samuel Bak
Join us for a live zoom conversation between artist Samuel Bak and Chief Curator Alexandra M. Cardon, as they discuss key ideas in Samuel Bak’s recent work.
This is a FREE event, but due to limited seating preregistration is required.
Speaker: Samuel Bak
Bio: The artist Samuel Bak explores and reworks sets of painted metaphors to raise questions on our human condition. His art depicts a world destroyed, and yet provisionally pieced back together, and preserves memory of the twentieth-century ruination of Jewish life and culture during the Holocaust. His work questions why violence, human rights violations, and genocide continue to define humanity. Since 1959, the artist has had numerous exhibitions in major museums, galleries, and universities throughout Europe, Israel, and the United States including retrospectives at Yad Vashem Museum in Jerusalem, and the South African Jewish Museum in Cape Town.
