Today is the final day to view the Tufts University Art Galleries (TUAG) exhibition “Visualizing Collections: Data-Driven Approaches to Anti-Bias Curating.” For decades, data has been a tool to shed light on the inequities in the visual arts — most famously utilized by the Guerrilla Girls, a masked collective of feminist artists who began using numbers and head-turning graphics in the 1980s to expose gender bias in museum collections. These efforts have since woven into the museum community with organizations like Museums Moving Forward, which uses data-driven approaches to analyze equity across all aspects of museum operations — from collecting, to curating, to staffing.

In 2020, TUAG began a campuswide audit to understand the representative composition of art on view and works held in Tufts’ permanent collection. A team reviewed the demographics of these artworks — both in subject matter and their makers — to better grasp how the university’s visual landscape reflects — or does not reflect — the community and contributes to inclusive spaces on campus. “Visualizing Collections” highlights two joint projects of TUAG and the Tufts Data Intensive Studies Center: The 2022 Art Datathon and 2023 Curatorial Algorithm research group used collections data — with details on each object, from maker, to donor, to location history on campus — in order to shape new ways of thinking about art as a reflection of Tufts’ institutional values — past, present, and future.

The exhibition is on view in the Slater Concourse of Aidekman Arts Center during regular gallery hours of 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday.