COURTESY THE BARNES FOUNDATION
The Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia has appointed Barbara Wong as director of community engagement. In the new position, Wong will coordinate existing and future outreach initiatives with a view toward improving awareness and wider accessibility for the museum.
For the past 16 years, Wong helped bring art to at-risk children in her role as the executive director of the Providence CityArts for Youth organization in Providence, Rhode Island. She also served as a program officer at the Rhode Island Foundation and director of summer programs for the Rhode Island School of Design’s Continuing Education program, where she taught art education and non-profit arts management courses.
In a statement, Thom Collins, the Barnes Foundation’s executive director and president, called Wong “a dynamic arts educator who has dedicated her career to empowering underserved communities and catalyzing social change by providing greater access to the arts and education.” Her experience, Collins said, makes her an “ideal fit for this new position, which was created to deepen the Barnes’s impact on the lives of residents and students we serve across Philadelphia.”