C21 Managing Director
waddelke@uwm.edu
Katie Waddell is a cultural program manager with experience leading program development, strategic partnerships, and community outreach in creative industries and higher education. Her public programming practice plays with gathering as form, with contemporary art and social practice as the primary point of departure. As an educator—specializing in art history, visual studies, and humanities—she applies creative thinking to traditional and digital learning environments, teaching people to draw connections between cultural artifacts and the specific social values that produce them.
Katie received a dual-M.A. in Modern Art History, Theory and Criticism, and Arts Administration and Policy from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She founded and directed 2nd Floor Rear (2012-2017), an annual festival of art in alternative spaces and experimental contexts, in Chicago, IL.