A Frame of Mind

"A Frame of Mind" is an original narrative podcast series that takes a hard look at race in America through the lens of one art museum. Hosted by poet and community leader Glenn North, the series uses individual works of art in the collection as catalysts for urgent, honest conversations about race, identity, accountability, and belonging, closing the distance between museums and "real life."
The podcast grew out of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art's desire to center and support Black voices in the wake of George Floyd's murder. It was developed from nearly 50 interviews across several years, and examines how race shapes both the stories museums tell and the experiences people have inside them. The series confronts Kansas City’s painful history of segregation and racial inequalities, and connects it to present-day questions of access and belonging within the Nelson-Atkins, and art museums in general. It treats museums as active participants in cultural narratives and asks them to account for who is represented, who is excluded, and why. Listeners experience this through a narrative journey that blends personal testimonials, spoken word poetry, oral histories, archival material, artworks, and immersive sound design. The resulting series is a new model for how cultural institutions can communicate in the digital age, eliminating the distance between "art" and "real life," and transforming the museum into a space of dialogue, reconciliation, and shared memory.