A Frame of Mind

Episode 5: The Scene of the Crime

Searching for his origins, Glenn comes face to face with a haunting image of slavery in America: a tiny photograph of a cotton plantation takes him back to the invention

Episode 4: The Names We Carry

What’s in a name? It gets complicated when Glenn sits down with professional genealogist Kathleen Brandt to trace his ancestors. Looking at his family history under the m

Episode 3: Stitching it Together

Being present in the moment means giving your full attention to something or someone, but the present is always suspended in tension between the weight of the past and th

Episode 2: American as Apple Pie

In Episode 2, Glenn introduces us to Mound Magician by Radcliffe Bailey. Shaped like a baseball diamond, the large assemblage is filled with details that reference Black

Episode 1: The Return

In Episode 1, Glenn North confronts what it means to be a Black man in America in 2026. Can art help us grasp who we are and how we’ve ended up here? Glenn thinks so. He

The Labyrinth

This is our last episode, but it’s not the end of the story. We go back a few years to when the Nelson-Atkins started to make some moves to celebrate Juneteenth, and why

Under Construction

We don’t know the names of the people whose hands and skill literally built the 1933 Nelson-Atkins building, but we know what some of them look like. This episode begins

First You Have to See It

The original Nelson-Atkins building has 23 panels carved on the outside, high up and kind of hard to see—really see. They tell a story of settler colonialism in the Midwe

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Why do Kansas City and the Nelson-Atkins look the way they do? In this episode, we rewind to the beginning of the 1900s. Kansas City was booming from a Cow Town to the Pa

Something's in the Air

For host Glenn North, you can’t talk about anything in the United States—museums, barbecue, football, whatever—without talking about race. It’s always there in our shared

Introducing A Frame of Mind

A new podcast taking a hard look at race in America through the lens of one art museum, hosted by Glenn North. From The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.