We are delighted to announce the appointment of Dr. Sampada Aranke to the role of Director of Mellon Archive Programs, in which she and artist Theaster Gates will co-lead the newly-launched Mellon Archives Innovation Program—a multifaceted initiative supporting the creation of new research, scholarship, and artistic production through engagement with Rebuild Foundation’s archival collections held at the Stony Island Arts Bank. With artistic direction from Theaster Gates, in this new role, Dr. Aranke will partner with artists and academics to imagine new strategies for the redeployment and activation of the archives. Dr. Aranke is an Assistant Professor in the Art History, Theory, and Criticism Department at the School of the Art Institute, Chicago, and joins Rebuild Foundation full-time for the 2022–2023 term. In this new role at Rebuild Foundation, Dr. Aranke will work in collaboration with and Theaster Gates to support the organization’s amplification of the archives as a rich resource for inspiring and facilitating the production of scholarly and artistic projects. The Mellon Archives Innovation Program is the result of an ongoing partnership between the Mellon Foundation and Rebuild Foundation, in which a $3.5M grant will, over the course of two years, be put towards developing engagement infrastructure for the archives and funding fellows’ projects. The four inaugural fellows are singer, songwriter, and musician Corin​ne Bailey Rae, interdisciplinary performing artist Yaw Agyeman; professor and performance studies scholar Dr. Honey Crawford; and composer and cornetist Ben LaMar Gay. Please join us in welcoming Dr. Sampada Aranke in her new role!