2025 Public Programs

Visiting Artist Talks and Panel Discussions were presented both at the museum and virtually, and all were documented and archived online.

Throughout the year, the museum hosted Silent KC’s silent concert series, culminating in three special performances tied to Riffs on Real Time, Stan Douglas: Metronome, & Lucia Vidales: Hambre. 

Kemper Museum partnered with the Kansas City Art Institute and Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art to celebrate one of the most creative blocks in KC. The Block Party, the museum’s largest public event, featured music, art activities, food trucks, and exhibitions at Kemper Museum along with the exceptional work of student artists at the KCAI End of Semester Exhibition + Sale.

Program Highlight: Art As Mentorship’s students provided a live performance at the museum’s 2025 Block Party and collaborated with the Kemper Teen Arts Council on programming in November. 

Professor/artist-led art-making workshops for adults occur on the last Thursday of every month with themes inspired by exhibitions. In 2025, these studio style art-making sessions led by local artists engaged over 25 community partners over the course of ten sessions. 

On the first Thursday of each month, Kemper Museum offers an evening of community and creativity. Visitors are invited to pick up a stool, drawing board, and provided drawing materials, or bring their own sketchbook and find a spot for open drawing at the museum.

Program Highlight: In 2025, Kemper Museum partnered with Manor Records to feature local live music at select open drawing sessions. In November, we took Open Drawing offsite and onto the KC Streetcar in collaboration with the Kansas City Streetcar Authority. In December, the program hosted textile artist, Alyx Jacobs for custom chainstitching at Open Drawing.

Kemper Museum and Charlotte Street launched the new artist talk series Beyond the Studio. Experience the Kemper Museum’s collections through the unique perspectives of Kansas City contemporary artists as Charlotte Street Studio Residents highlight their favorite objects on view connecting to their own artistic practices throughout. 

newEar in Concert: Musical Reflections on "Infinite Regress" in February Kemper Museum welcomed the return of newEar Contemporary Chamber Ensemble as they presented a concert connected to the exhibition, Infinite Regress: Mystical Abstraction from the Permanent Collection and Beyond. 

In 2024, Kemper Museum welcomed 2,806 students and their teachers on 75-minute interactive tours.

Participants ages 3–6 sing songs, read books, and make art with a Kemper Museum educator and a Kansas City Public Library librarian. Engaging up to 40 participants per session, this monthly program is held in-person at Kemper Museum. 

New in 2025, we expanded our offerings for young artists. In addition to Camp Kemper for ages 6-9, we introduced Modern Makers, a new program for ages 10-13. These three-day camps are led by a Kemper Museum educator. Each session featured hands-on creative projects inspired by the themes and artwork currently on view.  

Periodically held, the museum provides a quiet and low-stimulating environment prior to the museum’s opening hours where participants can enjoy a hands-on creative activity while experiencing art. A designated gallery and sensory break room with visual resources, hand fidgets, and other tools are provided. This program caters to families with children on the autism spectrum or people who have sensory sensitivities. 

A drop-in activity for all ages where budding art detectives discover something new about contemporary art. Activities are inspired by works in current exhibitions. 

Featuring hands-on art-making activities, guided mini-tours of the galleries, storytelling and more, Kemper Museum invited families and friends for an art-filled day of fun for everyone. 

Featuring hands-on art-making activities, guided mini-tours of the galleries and more, Kemper Museum invited homeschoolers for an art-filled day. 

Art & Health Specialist Piper Hutson presented how NeuroArt sheds light on the importance of understanding sensory processing and the potential future applications for art environments.  

Twice in 2025, local educators were invited to learn about our school tours and educational offerings, discover the museum on a mini tour with members of our docent team, or explore the galleries on their own using drawing prompts. 

Our 75-minute Docent-Led School Tours are student-centered, interactive, responsive to teachers’ objectives, and fun! 

Adult tours are flexible and responsive to the groups’ interests and needs. Docents adapt tours to their audiences to create meaningful connections between art and visitors’ lives. 

Monthly weekend programs for, designed, and promoted by teens in the Teen Arts Council. High school attendees represent the KC metro area. (Examples have included: Figure Drawing, Comics & Storytelling, and Poetry Workshops)

Occasional Thursday evening teen programs designed and promoted by the Teen Arts Council. (Examples have included: Careers in Art - Teen Info Night)

Since 2024, Kemper Museum has partnered with KCAI to offer the Teen Programs Internship. This paid position provides a unique opportunity for a selected college student to create innovative engagement opportunities for the teen council members and their high school peers in the Kansas City community. 

Teens learned about creative opportunities with a fabulous neighborhood walking tour, led by the Kemper and Nelson-Atkins Teen Councils. The tour featured stops at the Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City Art Institute, and Kemper Museum with guest speakers, activities, and takeaways every step of the way. 

The In Community programming series provided a variety of entry points and opportunities to gather at the museum and explore music, spoken word and storytelling, art-making and food tied to Kemper Museum’s latest Atrium project: Lucia Vidales: Hambre. Across 6 programs, this series allowed us to collaborate with over 15 community partners. 

In celebration of Juneteenth, Kemper Museum was honored to present acclaimed jazz flautist Amber Underwood and her dynamic band, Flutienastiness, and the SoulPatrol featuring powerhouse vocalist Paula Saunders. Joined by local musicians, they performed a “joyful noise” that honored the rich legacy, resilience, and beauty of African American art, history, and music. 

The American Jazz Museum, Gem Theater, and Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, were honored to host an exciting evening with Kansas City-area filmmaker and Oscar winning co-writer for BlacKkKlansman, Kevin Willmott. Wilmott discussed his film repertoire through the lens of Stan Douglas: Metronome’s exhibition themes of history, global connectivity, socio-political unrest, and the power of protest.  

Such as Pulse of the Holidays (2021), Counting Down the Holidays (2022), Musical Merriment with Kansas City Music Teachers Association (2023 & 2024) events such as these included visiting artisans, item-donation drives, and special discounts in the Museum Shop. The museum welcomed KCMTA and their student performers once again in 2025. 

Kemper Museum launched its newest publication, Stan Douglas: Ghostlight in conjunction with Literacy in Action, a day of celebration and advocacy for literacy initiatives and library services in Kansas City. The museum hosted an afternoon of poetry readings, zine-making, and activities as they highlighted the critical services and resources provided by our community partners: Kansas City Public Library, Spencer Library at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Lead to Read KC, and Literacy KC. 

Kemper Museum is honored to collaborate with Indigenous artists, environmentalists and scholars within our local community through a series of thoughtfully curated programs tied to Andrea Carlson: Shimmer on Horizons. 

In September, Kemper Museum hosted Regional Spotlight: Indigenous Stewardship of the Haskell Wetlands  led by Chief Curator Jessica S. Hong and Courtney King (Peoria), Greenhouse Manager at Haskell Indian Nations University. Attendees discovered connections between artist Andrea Carlson’s time-based work and local Indigenous land stewardship, wetlands rematriation, preservation, and challenges posed by carbon banking. 

In conjunction with the Kansas City Art Institute’s Current Perspectives artist talk in September, Kemper Museum hosted interdisciplinary artist Alteronce Gumby as the museum premiered a film screening of his award-winning documentary COLOR. 

As a part of the UMKC Shutz Lecture Series, Kemper Museum and UMKC’s Department of English and Media, Art and Design invited scholar Gloria Sutton to present her ongoing project, Pattern Recognition: Contemporary Art in the Age of Artificial Intelligence in October. 

Kemper Museum celebrated the KC Streetcar expansion and the grand opening of The Arterie in November with neighborhood-wide festivities in partnership with Midtown KC Now, KC Streetcar Authority, Kansas City Art Institute, and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.