William Herbert Holt III

William Herbert Holt III (he/they) is a cultural heritage worker pursuing an MA in Art History at the University of Colorado Boulder. William graduated summa cum laude from Portland State University in 2024 with a BA in Art History and a minor in Art Practice. There, they served as the director of the university’s student-run contemporary art gallery, Littman and White, and were the recipient of the Jane Kristof Endowed Prize in Art History Research for their capstone project examining gender essentialism in scholarship on Judith Leyster. They have worked across Portland’s arts ecosystem as a freelance art handler and arts administrator, most recently holding a position at the Portland Chinatown Museum where they supported day to day operations, exhibition development, and public programming. This role affirmed William’s belief in the power of arts institutions to foster important cross-cultural dialogue and function as a site of change and repair.  

Their research interests lie in contemporary socially engaged practices that are participatory and collaborative. They seek to expand methods for evaluating ephemeral, community-oriented projects, especially those that draw on models of mutual aid and public service within marginalized communities as artistic frameworks. Through this work, William hopes to advance a more critical approach to thoughtfully and sustainably integrating these practices into institutional structures. Outside of their research, William finds joy in photography, classic films, collecting records, hiking, and writing poetry. Although one of their long-term career goals is to pursue a PhD, William is passionate about working directly with communities through public-facing initiatives and sees their future not solely in academia but in continuing to transform cultural institutions from within.