For Kimaada Le Gendre, turning into a trainer was not what she deliberate, however issues modified and that’s an excellent factor.
“Each my mother and father are lecturers. A whole lot of my members of the family— aunts, uncles, all of that — had been lecturers. … after I went to varsity, I positively needed to carve my very own path,” mentioned Le Gendre.
It was when she attended legislation faculty that the curiosity in training was sparked for the Queens native. Impressed by an environmental training class, Le Gendre linked her love of coverage to the world of training she already knew, main her to pitching the varsity the place her mom labored — the Cambria Middle for the Gifted Youngster — for a chance to show environmental training.
This system was a hit, and the principal of the varsity requested Le Gendre to remain to show the category with an emphasis on educating by the colonized lens. She already had expertise with educating college students in that method whereas educating at its sister faculty, the Cambria College of Excellence.
“It was an attractive and uncommon alternative … to actually create curriculum that was rooted in social justice,” she mentioned.
When Le Gendre joined the Queens Museum in January 2020, months earlier than the COVID pandemic hit, she was an training supervisor. She targeted on the adjustment of the museum’s youth programming, utilizing her background in training to create a curriculum and curate a program that may profit teenagers and their engagement with the museum.
When the pandemic hit, Le Gendre was confronted with the problem of sustaining engagement with youth by different means, utilizing distant platforms like Zoom to take care of a reference to individuals.
“We needed to make it possible for the humanity facet of it wasn’t misplaced as a result of now I’m looking at you on a display,” she mentioned.
When the pandemic ended, lots of the packages Le Gendre applied by COVID continued, though now on a hybrid schedule to accommodate the change in engagement that it created. Le Gendre would stay training supervisor till July 2021, when she was named Director of Training. In Might 2024, she was appointed Director of Training and Neighborhood engagement. The brand new place got here with a change within the division as effectively, dealing with not solely teaching programs but in addition reveals associated to public packages, in addition to cultural and neighborhood occasions. The rise in packages got here with the duty of sustaining the relationships, which Le Gendre mentioned is vital to maintain.
“We positively imagine in belief constructing,” Le Gendre mentioned. “We work with numerous wonderful neighborhood companions, and people neighborhood partnerships don’t occur in a single day, this trust-building that has to occur over time. And we take these relationships very significantly, as a result of typically they attain components of the borough that we [can’t] attain.”
Le Gendre takes satisfaction in the neighborhood facet of the museum, citing it as one in all their greatest strengths. The museum, positioned in Flushing, is regionally pushed, not guided by tourism like different museums within the metropolis. Le Gendre is conscious of the lack of knowledge of the museum and desires to vary that.
“I began realizing the hyper-local neighborhood knew the Queens Museum, however of us in South Jamaica and Rockaway and stuff like that, they didn’t know,” she mentioned. “An enormous a part of me additionally desirous to be there was this concept of ‘Okay, we have to attain people who’re in Queens’ in order that they really feel like that is their house, too.”
Le Gendre emphasised the museum’s engagement with the neighborhood and continued efforts to take care of belief to construct one thing that may be a reflection of not solely the museum, however of the neighborhood it resides in. With the implementation of packages such because the Queens Teenagers Institute for Artwork & Social Justice, Le Gendre understands the belief of the neighborhood is earned, not anticipated.
Le Gendre’s expertise in working in a museum introduced up acknowledgment of an arguably elitist tradition that may include that surroundings, making it simpler to exclude teams of people that could not have had a previous connection to the humanities.
“There are numerous of us who assume, ‘Oh my gosh, working in an artwork museum, it’s a must to have this.’ I didn’t as soon as take an artwork class in school, as a result of my focus was so totally different. It’s a kind of issues the place you’ll be able to positively take the normal journey, however you too can meander, and you too can come from totally different viewpoints.”
In flip, Le Gendre is dedicated to holding the museum accountable for participating in the neighborhood. In her present place, she mentioned her work offers with extra interplay with the neighborhood, granting her the flexibility to let members of the neighborhood really feel welcome, not delay by the establishment.
“I feel it’s additionally this concept that we’re a really huge, scary, intimidating constructing,” she mentioned. “Folks typically don’t need to come inside as a result of they’re like, ‘Oh, a museum. Ooh. I don’t know if I’m gonna perceive these reveals, these exhibitions,’ and so there’s that a part of it.
“A whole lot of the [programs] that come out of our division — accountability, intention are positively on the coronary heart of it, as a result of there’s an emotional labor that goes to creating, facilitating, and sustaining some of these packages, as a result of they’re not surface-based packages,” Le Gendre continued.
Whereas the museum continues to cater to the general public, Le Gendre acknowledged considerations concerning the way forward for museums amid continued cuts to funding for establishments reminiscent of libraries and museums in the course of the Trump administration. Regardless of that concern, Le Gendre focuses on various options to the dearth of funding. She and Queens Museum president Sandy Tallant imagine in growing bold packages with out letting cash dictate their ambition.
“You develop it by concepts and issues like that, and then you definately chase the cash, proper? You then’re searching for grants if you happen to imagine in one thing, if there’s a narrative to be advised, if there’s an influence to be made, then you definately hope to get a selected kind of cash, whether or not it’s by manufacturers, people, establishments, to then pilot these packages, pitch these packages, preserve these packages,” she mentioned.
Le Gendre’s unwavering hope in her work is among the many issues that drive her to proceed her efforts in neighborhood engagement. As a daughter of Queens, the job is extra than simply fulfilling.
“Whereas I’m not from the hyper-local Corona neighborhood, after we do packages that people from South Jamaica or Southeastern Queens are from, I really feel very a lot a kinship after we companion with sure faculties on the market or when now we have sure teenagers who enroll from sure neighborhoods,” Le Gendre mentioned. “I actually really feel just like the work that I got down to do to form of get this work out in Queens is occurring day-to-day, slowly however certainly.”
Editor’s Word: An earlier model of this story listed Kimaada Le Gendre as an training supervisor on the Queens Museum from 2020 till 2024. Truly, she was training supervisor from 2020-2021, when she turned Director of Training. She was promoted to Director of Training and Neighborhood Engagement in Might 2024.
