Meet the Curators

March 1, 2025

The CAT Museum is thrilled to have a dynamic new curatorial team at the helm: Dr. Jill Ahlberg Yohe, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, and Linnea Seidling, Assistant Curator of Glass. Ahlberg Yohe joined the staff in December 2024, and Seidling was recently promoted from her former position as the Museum’s Director of Communication and Events.

Ahlberg Yohe has more than a decade of experience producing innovative exhibitions, scholarship, and programming as an independent consultant and museum curator. She earned her PhD from the University of New Mexico and served for many years at the Minneapolis Institute of Art as the associate curator of Native American Art, during which time she organized notable exhibitions including “Hearts of our People” and “In Our Hands.” In addition to her extensive knowledge of contemporary artists, Indigenous cultures, and the Twin Cities arts scene, Ahlberg Yohe embodies a commitment to meaningful community engagement.

Ahlberg Yohe works closely with Seidling, who has an extensive background in decorative arts and glass history. Seidling holds an MA in the History of Decorative Art, Design, and Material Culture from the Bard Graduate Center in New York City and has worked in curatorial positions at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the J. Paul Getty Museum, and the Corning Museum of Glass.

We sat them down for a discussion about the role of a curator in a 21st-century art museum, their vision for the future of the CAT, and their opinion about the age-old debate: cats versus dogs.

CAT Museum: Let’s begin with a big-picture question: how do you define what it means to be a curator?

Jill: For me, the job of an art curator is to facilitate interactions between art objects and people. My role as a curator is to make art and art histories available to all people, through focused and clearly developed art exhibitions, scholarship and writing, and programming. I believe the future of museums is to focus on creating engaging, thoughtful, and moving experiences for our visitors, and making sure that everyone feels welcome.

Linnea: I feel exactly the same. My job is to bring interesting stories and fascinating artwork to the communities we welcome through our doors or who see our content online. I believe in meeting visitors where they are, and that can be hard when visitors come to the CAT Museum with different experiences and needs. Great stories and great artists energize me, and I strive to share that energy with visitors.

CAT Museum: How do you know when you’ve done your job well – what does success look like for you?

Jill: Great question. I know through the responses from the communities we serve. I think museums often think they know what communities want, but it really isn’t until we hear the responses from people – how the exhibition or essay made them think and feel – do we really know.

Linnea: I know from visitor feedback, which takes a variety of forms, from social media comments to what I overhear in the galleries. I still spend time at the front desk of the CAT Museum, so I get to hear feedback first-hand, see what visitors gravitate to, and hear the conversations they have with their friends and family. Because we are small, we are also nimble. It’s great that our leadership is open to making changes based on feedback, and we can make them quickly.

CAT Museum: As you know, the CAT Museum is a new institution, not even three years old. What is it like to be part of a museum in its very early years?  How do you envision the CAT evolving in the next five years? 15 years?

Linnea: It’s so nice to not be bogged down with institional history. We can’t say things like, “we’ve always done it this way,” because we haven’t! I think the CAT is going to continue building its reputation, and will become a favorite for visitors who want to experience modern and contemporary art in a low-pressure environment. There are so many barriers to visiting museums: you don’t have hours to spend, the exhibition content seems intimidating, or you don’t want to spend the money. Being free doesn’t automatically equate to being welcoming, but we are proud to prioritize both. By the time the CAT Museum celebrates 15 years, it will be one of the most welcoming places to enjoy art in town.

Jill: So young! I can’t tell you how exciting it is to be a part of a new museum. We are building for the future. I see incredible opportunity at the CAT Museum and I think we can offer the Twin Cities and the country a different way to experience modern and contemporary art in a personable, inviting, and accessible way.

CAT Museum: What are you the most excited about right now in terms of your own curatorial practice? How do you two collaborate?

Jill: I am so delighted to be working with Linnea. She and I have similar visions, and we complement each other in many ways. I’m learning so much every day. It is great to have someone to collaborate with, and I’ve always believed that working with other people makes projects better.

Linnea: I am excited to build my practice further into the world of contemporary art and glass. My background as an art historian and curator has been mostly in topics of the past. My first job in the field was working with a collection of eighteenth-century French furniture, but my career has brought me to new places, all the way up to art of the present. I am excited to see how my previous curatorial work will inform my approach to contemporary topics. I look forward to finding artists I can champion today. I am used to learning about artists in a library or an archive, so it’s exciting to work with living artists.

Having fantastic mentors is invaluable as an emerging curator. I have learned so much from Jill in the two short months we have worked together. Even in projects we are not technically collaborating on, we use each other as a sounding board for ideas.

CAT Museum: We’ll end with a series of hard-hitting questions: Cats or dogs? Summer or winter? Hot dish or casserole? Morning or night? Coffee or tea?

Jill: I can’t choose between cats and dogs; it would be like choosing between my children.

Summer always.

Hot dish.

Morning

Coffee!

Linnea: I pick dogs. I grew up with dachshunds, so more specifically, I pick dachshunds.

Winter! I’d pick being cold over being hot any day.

Hot dish.

Morning.

Up until becoming a mom last year, I would say tea, but now I am coffee all the way!

Thanks to both Jill and Linnea for taking the time to chat! Stay tuned to learn more about the incredible projects they have in store for the CAT Museum.