Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice

Persephone Allen (she/her) is curator, educator, cultural producer, and design historian based in Providence, RI. She brings a collaborative and community-engaged approach to creating courses, exhibitions, and programs that catalyze dialogue and connection, inviting us to examine art, history, design, ourselves, and our world through multiple perspectives. Her research currently focuses on questions of intervention, institutions, and community and public engagement. Her teaching, programming, and research are rooted in a commitment to equity, access, and collaboration. In addition to teaching at Brown, she is a Lecturer in the Theory and History of Art and Design department at RISD. Previously, she held positions as Director of Public Programs at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Curator of Programs and Engagement at the American Folk Art Museum, and Assistant Museum Educator for Lectures and Programs at The Frick Collection in New York. She has also held positions in education, curatorial, and programming at Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the Bard Graduate Center Gallery in New York, and the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities in Providence. Her writing has appeared in gallery exhibitions throughout New England and her essay “The Metallic Sphere as Mechanical Eye: Reflected Identities at the Bauhaus,” was published in Dust & Data: Bauhaus Trajectories in One Hundred Years of Modernism (2019). She holds an MA in History from the University of Edinburgh, and an MA in Design History, Decorative Arts, and Material Culture from the Bard Graduate Center (BGC). Her work has been supported by the Rhode Island Foundation (RIF), the Interlace Fund, a regranting partner of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the National Art Education Association (NAEA), and Providence’s Department of Arts, Culture, and Tourism (ACT), among others. She serves on the advisory board of OPEN in Providence’s Valley Arts District, and recent exhibitions include GO ‘HEAD, FIX YOU A PLATE (co-curated with artist Jazzmen Lee-Johnson) at AS220’s Aborn Gallery and How to Be Both at OVERLAP ART SPACE in Newport. She is co-curator and co-founder of Here & Elsewhere, a community-based art space at 1392 Westminster in Providence’s West End.