Fellow Spotlight: Trinitee Tatum

Introducing Trinitee Tatum, 2025-26 Makeba Clay Fellow.

Tell us about yourself.

My name is Trinitee Tatum, and I am a senior undergraduate student at the University of Maryland, College Park, double majoring in Art History and American Studies. My research interests center on contemporary Black art and religious visual culture. I previously interned at the David C. Driskell Center and also work as a docent at a gallery on campus. When I’m not working, studying, or organizing events on campus, I enjoy watching movies with my friends and going down Wikipedia rabbit holes. (Did you know there was a basketball team in Washington, DC, in the 1920s called the Washington Palace Five, nicknamed the Laundrymen because they were sponsored by a chain of laundries?) 

What brought you to museum work/the Phillips/the arts.  

For as long as I can remember, I have loved making art. As a kid, I would watch my sister draw and try to copy her. I studied graphic design for several years before realizing that I enjoyed talking about art more than making it. Even so, artmaking has always been closely connected, for me, to museums and galleries—one of my first jobs in high school was as a graphic designer at the Prince George’s African American Museum and Cultural Center. Growing up in Maryland, I spent a great deal of time visiting museums in Baltimore and Washington, DC, but as a young Black girl, I often struggled to find myself reflected in these spaces and in the work on display. As I have gotten older, I know understand that the power is within me to be the change I wanted to see in the arts. This is the motivation that got me into doing the work I do now at the Phillips.  

What have you been working on / what will you be working on? 

One of the main things I have been working on is the Institutional History Project (IHP), a project launched in 2021 to critically examine The Phillips Collection’s history and identity. Building on the work of my predecessors Sophie Bennett and Elizabeth Chung, I have been researching the demographics of the artists in our permanent collection beginning in the year 2000. I investigate these artists’ race, ethnicity, gender, disability status, sexual orientation, and nationality, drawing primarily from secondary sources. I synthesize and present this information to both internal and public audiences, including sharing my findings with the Board of Trustees. This work is essential in identifying blind spots and gaps in collecting practices as we strive to make everyone feel seen and represented in The Phillips Collection.  

In December, I also had the privilege of co-presenting on art and bias with Dr. Yuma Tomes as part of the Phillips’s Diversity Intergroup Dialogue Series (DIDS). This presentation used art as a framework for examining how our judgments and perceptions shape the ways we see ourselves and others. My favorite part was leading visual analysis exercises using works from the Out of Many: Reframing an American Art Collection exhibition, encouraging participants to reflect on and challenge their own preconceived notions. This opportunity allowed me to see the tangible impact of my research and participate in meaningful change from within the institution.