Each year, UVM’s School of the Arts invites students and faculty to explore a shared theme through art, research, and dialogue. This year’s theme, Hidden Figures, considers who is seen, who is overlooked, and how art can surface stories that might otherwise remain in the shadows.

For the 2026 Research Week, events will include a student-curated pop-up exhibit, Curated by CATS: Fashion's Empires, at the Fleming Museum of Art as well as the School of the Arts JP Marton Series ’25–’26 Hidden Figures Symposium: a two-day presentation event featuring faculty research from across the arts and languages disciplines, including a presentation by Dr. Marlene Tromp, UVM President.

“By surfacing hidden figures, artists become agents of recognition and remembrance,” says Sonja Lunde, Executive Director of the Fleming Museum of Art. “Their work can challenge conventional narratives, celebrate complexity, and invite us to imagine a more inclusive vision of the past, present, and future.”

The Fleming partnered with UVM students from Professor Abby McGowan's Fashion's Empires history course to curate an original pop-up exhibit as well as present their research on works from the Museum’s collections. Tracing how innovations in dress and adornment have helped construct identities, shape politics, and power economies in the modern world, Curated by CATS: Fashion's Empires, will be on view Tuesday, April 14 through Saturday, April 18, with research presentations on Wednesday, April 15, from 11am - 2pm in the Fleming’s Learning Studio.

The School of the Arts JP Marton Series ’25–’26 Hidden Figures Symposium is comprised of presentations from twelve faculty members, covering everything from the hidden history of Renaissance and Baroque sculpture to exploring migration narratives through material and memory. 

“In the School of the Arts, we have nationally and internationally renowned scholars and makers who push boundaries, find new ways of communicating, and force us to see, hear, think, and understand differently the world we live in and the histories that have shaped us,” says Kelley Helmstutler, Executive Director of the School of the Arts.

See the full schedule of events below. 

UVM Research Week at the School of the Arts 

• Tuesday through Saturday, 4/14 – 4/18: Curated by CATS: Fashion's Empires Pop-Up Exhibit at the Fleming Museum of Art

   

• Wednesday, 4/15, 11am – 2pm: Curated by CATS: Student Research Presentations at the Fleming Museum of Art

   

• Wednesday, 4/15, 5:00pm - 7pm: Hidden Figures Symposium at 301 Williams Hall
  • Theme I: Historical Hiding in Art and Literature
    • 5:10pm: Dominique DeLuca (Art History), Echo and Philomela: Medieval Images of Rupture and Absence
    • 5:30: Paolo Pucci (Italian), Inclusion at a Cost: Obstacles to Inter-Religious Relations in the Novellas by Bandello (c. 1480-1562) and Giraldi Cinzio (1504-1573)
    • 5:50pm - Kelley Helmstutler (Art History), Hidden Histories of Renaissance and Baroque Sculpture
    • 6:10pm: Sarah Richter (Art History) Invisible Women of Gorée: Faustine, the Signares, and the Afterlife of Slavery
    • 6:30pm - Yutaka Kono (Music), Hidden Voices: Composers, Identity, and the Music of Concealment
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• Thursday, 4/16, 1:00pm – 4:30pm: Hidden Figures Symposium at Royall Tyler Theatre
  • Theme II: Narratives of Identity and Memory in Art and Literature
    • 1:10pm - Marlene Tromp (English), “Only a Story”
    • 1:30pm - Yolanda Flores (Spanish), Hidden in Plain Sight: Collective Black Voice and the Denial of Racism in Colombia
    • 1:50pm: Mary Louise Kete (English), Monumental Dangers: Lydia Sigourney and the Problem of Memorializing Napoleon
    • 2:10pm - Jen Berger (Studio Art), Public Art, Monuments, and What We Choose to Remember
  • Theme III: New Ways Forward through the Arts
    • 3:10pm - Nicolei Buendia Gupit (Studio Art), Holding Absence: Migration Narratives in Material and Memory
    • 3:30pm: Jaimes Mayhew (Studio Art), A Different Horizon Atlas: Queer Topographies for Survival and Speculation
    • 3:50pm: Ace Lehner (Studio Art and Art History), All My Loves

The UVM School of the Arts JP Marton Series ’25–’26 Hidden Figures Symposium is made possible by the generosity of Yvette Pigeon and Fred "Chico" Lager.