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State of the Arts Telfair Museums’ new executive director and CEO Benjamin T. Simons on imaginative spaces, artistic safe havens and Savannah’s contemporary arts scene Interview by SARA WATSON
HOW DOES YOUR ROLE AT TELFAIR MUSEUMS REPRESENT A CULMINATION OF YOUR PREVIOUS POSITIONS?
This is the fourth institution I’ve worked at. One has been bigger, another smaller, and one is about the same size. I started out as chief curator at the Nantucket Historical Association, which, like the Telfair, is a venerable museum founded in the
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19th century with multiple historical properties. In 2005, right around the time of the Jepson Center project, we built a brand-new museum in Nantucket: we were modernizing a beloved institution that had long, loyal support but was starting to look more progressively to the future. In my most recent role, as executive director at a small but mighty museum — Academy Art Museum in Easton, Maryland — I also had the
Photography by RICH BURKHART
