Timothy Anne Burnside

Timothy Anne Burnside is a Museum Specialist in Curatorial Affairs at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). She works closely with object donors to build collections around music & performing arts and contemporary cultural history, and develops exhibitions and programs that offer complex representations of history and cultural expression. In addition to collection and exhibition development, her background includes curatorial research, archival work, collections management, and program production. Timothy began her career with the Smithsonian at the National Museum of American History in 2003 where she worked in the Archives Center and Division of Cultural History, then launched that museum’s hip-hop collecting initiative in 2006. In 2009 she joined what was then a small NMAAHC team to work on an exhibition about the Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York that toured the country from 2010-2012. Once that exhibition opened, Timothy started collecting objects and developing content for multiple NMAAHC inaugural exhibitions, including Musical Crossroads, Sports: Leveling the Playing Field, Taking the Stage, Cultural Expressions, and The Power of Place, as well as the temporary exhibition Watching Oprah: The Oprah Winfrey Show and American Culture. Her work encourages museum professionals and visitors alike to expand ideas about what kinds of stories museums can and should include, and what kinds of objects can be used to tell those stories.

intersections of music / culture / history + present