October 14 – 16, 2026
University of Chicago | Smart Museum of Art | The Martin Marty Center for the Public Understanding of Religion

The University of Chicago's Smart Museum of Art and the Martin Marty Center for the Public Understanding of Religion are excited to bring together a group of international experts in provenance research, museum practice, religious studies, and cultural heritage for the symposium "Religion, Art, and Provenance in Museums." This symposium is part of a multi-year project supported by Lilly Endowment Inc.

Free and open to the public, this multi-day gathering will feature keynote lectures, panel discussions, and roundtables that explore the lives and afterlives of religious objects within museum collections. Together, participants will engage critical questions around display methodologies, community-engaged scholarship, and ethical policies for restitution and repatriation.

The symposium will feature two keynote lectures by leading voices in the field, offering critical perspectives on the provenance of religious objects and their implications for museum practice, cultural heritage, and public understanding.

Joanna Gohmann | Associate Curator of Provenance Research & Object Histories, Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art
Ciraj Rassool | Senior Professor in the Department of Historical Studies, University of the Western Cape

For questions, please reach out to rickyreyes@uchicago.edu.

schedule

Coming soon, this space will be updated once finalized.

RSVP

Coming soon, link to register forthcoming. Admission to the symposium is free; registration is required.