As we look towards Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday, January 20, join Barbara Lee Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs Ruth Erickson for a conversation about the ICA’s presentation of The Gun Violence Memorial Project, a collaboration between Boston-based MASS Design Group and artist Hank Willis Thomas. 

The Gun Violence Memorial Project is another monumental product of collaboration between MASS Design and Hank Willis Thomas following the unveiling of The Embrace in 2022, a bronze monument that honors and celebrates the legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King, and their history in Boston. 

About Ruth Erickson

Barbara Lee Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs Ruth Erickson has been a driving force in the ICA’s curatorial department since joining the museum in 2014. Among her many projects, she has organized major thematic group exhibitions, including the critically acclaimed To Begin Again: Artists and Childhood (2022), A Place for Me: Figurative Painting Now (2022), and When Home Won’t Let You Stay: Migration through Contemporary Art (2019); a significant artist survey and publication Mark Dion: Misadventures of a 21st-Century Naturalist (2017); and solo presentations of María Berrío (2023), Barbara Kruger (2022), Vivian Suter (2019), Wangechi Mutu (2018), and Kevin Beasley (2018), among others. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications, including the 2015 exhibition and publication Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933–57 (for which she was co-editor and served as research fellow), Ruth Asawa: All is Possible (2021), Kevin Beasley (2018), Sue Williams (2015), and Take It or Leave It: Institution, Image, Ideology (2014). Before joining the ICA, Erickson was a fellow at the Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia (2008–10) and served as curator at Burlington City Arts (BCA) (2004–7). She received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Pennsylvania, and her B.A. from Carleton College, Northfield, MN. Erickson is the recipient of a prestigious Center for Curatorial Leadership Fellowship in 2021.