Access this and more with your registration:

General Session Keynotes

Designed to engage the entire National Convention audience, these daily experiences feature high-profile keynote speakers, along with NAEA Executive and Board leadership, setting the tone for the convention experience. 

Artist Series

A special showcase of innovative and accomplished local artists in visual arts, design, and media arts, curated by the Local Advisory Committee. Each year, attendees enjoy an exclusive, immersive experience with sought-after creatives from the host city. 

Concurrent Sessions

Concurrent Sessions form the core of the National Convention programming, providing a wide breadth of learning and engagement opportunities through hands-on workshops, research presentations, demonstrations, discussions, and interactive sessions, spanning NAEA divisions, interest groups, and focus areas. 

Business Meetings/Awards

Hosted by NAEA regional, division, interest group, and focus area leadership, Business Meetings and Award Sessions are opportunities to conduct annual business, recognize achievements, facilitate attendee engagement, and network within the National Convention program. 

Exhibit Hall & Digital Playground

See and try the latest and greatest products, services, and opportunities in the visual art, design, and media arts education field. That’s right…SWAG!

Museum Discounts

During downtime, explore all that Chicago has to offer! Present your NAEA26 Convention badge to receive free or discounted admission at select Chicago museums.

Keynote Speakers

We’re excited to announce the Keynote speakers for NAEA26! Be informed and inspired as an educator and an artist by this outstanding lineup of General Session Speakers.

Bisa Butler

Textile Artist

Bisa Butler creates vibrant quilted portraits that celebrate African American life and history. Inspired by family scrapbooks, American folk traditions, and AfriCOBRA philosophies, she uses layered fabrics and quilting to create compositions with psychological depth. Her work is in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the High Museum of Art, and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, among others. Butler has exhibited internationally and received the inaugural Faith in the Arts Award in 2024. She lives and works in New Jersey.

Yvette Mayorga

Multidisciplinary Artist

Chicago-based artist Yvette Mayorga transforms sugar-pink palettes and rococo-inspired textures into confectionary-based explorations of belonging, consumer culture, femme power, and the American Dream. As a first-generation Latinx, she draws from personal experience to inform her art. Her work has been featured in solo exhibitions at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Museo de Arte de Zapopan, and The Momentary at Crystal Bridges, as well as in group shows at LACMA, El Museo del Barrio, and beyond. Her art is held in major collections including the Smithsonian Renwick Gallery, Crystal Bridges, and the City of Chicago’s permanent public art collection at O’Hare International Airport. She is currently developing her largest public artwork to date for New York’s Times Square Arts.

Jeffrey Gibson

Multidisciplinary Artist

Jeffrey Gibson is an interdisciplinary artist known for his bold synthesis of Indigenous and Western traditions across painting, installation, video, and performance. A citizen of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and of Cherokee descent, he represented the United States at the 2024 Venice Biennale with his solo exhibition the space in which to place me, later shown at The Broad in Los Angeles. Gibson’s work is in the permanent collections of MoMA, the Whitney, and the National Gallery of Art. He is the 2025 Metropolitan Museum Genesis Facade Commission artist and lives in New York’s Hudson Valley, where he is artist-in-residence at Bard College.

Concurrent Sessions 

Get started planning your NAEA26 experience!

Download the preliminary list of concurrent sessions and business meetings below. Scheduled session listings (including session dates and times) will be available in mid-November 2025.

Additional Ticketed Content Opportunities:

In addition to the hundreds of sessions included with NAEA26 registration, attendees also have the opportunity to purchase tickets to engage in Hands-On Workshops and Ticketed Events. Psst! Registered participants get first dibs when ticket sales open  in mid-November. Register now and add tickets on to your registration at any point, while supplies last!

Preconventions

Ticket sales open in mid-November

 

 

Hands-On Workshops

Ticket sales open in mid-November

 

 

Offsite Tours

Ticket sales open in mid-November