I feel so lucky to come in on the heels of that kind of magnitude of a capital project,” said Suda. Suda’s predecessor at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Timothy Rub, led the institution for 13 years, during which time the Museum underwent a massive physical reconstruction: a half-billion dollar project with architect Frank Gehry to rip the interior of the museum apart and stitch it back together, creating an additional 90,000 square feet of underground space. Suda plans to turn the Philadelphia Museum of Art “inside out.” “The point is that you can kind of push on each other and make sure that you get to the best place,” she said.ĥ. She said she is looking forward to negotiating with the PMA union. If a negotiation is not hammered out between the union and management before Suda begins as director this fall, the union will have been more than two years without a labor contract. In 2020, workers at the Philadelphia Museum of Art formed a union, but have yet to finalize their first contract. “It may not always be an easy conversation, but it’s meant to be generative and productive and for the best of everyone who works at the Gallery.” “I was a proud member of the union at the Art Gallery of Ontario,” said Suda, who once worked as assistant curator, then Curator of European Art, and Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Toronto museum.Īt her current job, the National Gallery of Canada has two unions: one for curators, and another for “wall-to-wall” workers across many departments. Suda had been a unionized museum worker, and says she can negotiate amicable terms with the PMA union. “We are looking at getting a second dog and I may have to pay the price, and the next dog may be Peter Gabriel,” she said. That notion of truth and reconciliation is something that’s really core to Canadian society right now, something that’s a major priority for the federal government.”
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“Also thinking about indigenous peoples from coast to coast to coast on Turtle Island. “The third major mandate was engaging the indigenous communities on whose land the gallery sits, our host nation, the Algonquin Anishinaabe Nation,” said Suda. Suda said that her second mandate was to see that the public federal institution represents the entire country, “from coast to coast to coast” (Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic Oceans). Last year the National Gallery released its planning report, with a strong emphasis on justice, equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility. “One of my mandates was to dive into that work.” “I came in on the heels of the first ever staff engagement survey, which was encouraged and the urgency around it raised by the Gallery’s two unions,” she said. It started with a focus on internal relations within the staff. The National Gallery of Canada was founded in 1880, and had never gone through a strategic planning process until Suda’s tenure as director. In 2019 Suda, then 38, was the youngest leader of the National Gallery of Canada in a century, and led the 140-year-old institution through its first strategic planning process. “You’re sitting next to the Schuylkill where, you know, that’s the reference point for these paintings, which you also read about in textbooks and learn about in lecture halls, no matter where you grow up or where you take art history,” said Suda. In her new job, starting in September, she will be overlooking the Schuylkill River, whose rowers artist Thomas Eakins often painted. She said she may pick up rowing again, but “I think it will take a while to settle in.”
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While an undergraduate studying American Modernism, Suda was a member of Princeton University Women’s 8 Crew, and would come to Philadelphia to compete on the Schuylkill. Suda rowed crew for Princeton University and raced competitively on the Schuylkill River. Here are a few things we need to know about the next head of the PMA.ġ. WHYY thanks our sponsors - become a WHYY sponsor