Ross Jordan; Beer Summit: Envisioning artistic engagement with the archive. Museum displays in presidential libraries are notorious for obfuscating the historical truths found in their archives. Famously, the displays in Ronald Reagan's presidential library did not mention the Iran-Contra scandal even as it held the documents about those events. The mediated nature of archives has made them an important subject in contemporary art. Artists like Fred Wilson, James Luna and Walid Raad have created archive displays that offer uncomfortable histories and ambiguous narratives that reshape public imagination about archival subjects. With bids under development in New York, Hawaii and Chicago for Obama's presidential library how do recent artistic interventions into archives help us envision a body of objects and documents that is a public resources for transformation? Ross Jordan is an Assistant Director of Exhibitions and the Curatorial Fellow in the Department of Exhibitions and Exhibitions Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He holds masters degrees in art history and arts administration and policy from the same institution. Previously, he was a 12-month intern in the Department of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art where he was a contributor to the museums blog InSide/Out and provided research support for future exhibitions including Diego Rivera: Murals for The Museum of Modern Art (2011). Ross is interested in the intersection of material and visual culture and political and public imagination. Recent curatorial projects include Haptic: Touch and Textile at Adult Contemporary, Chicago (2014) and In/visible at Co-prosperity Sphere in Chicago's Bridgeport Neighborhood (2012). Originally from Decatur Ga. Ross received his B.A. in Studio Arts from Connecticut College and was a recipient of a studio arts fellowship at Trinity College in Hartford, CT.