2024-2028 / Director and Co-Curator

More than ten years in the making, In Slavery's Wake is a major international traveling exhibition project exploring how communities across the African diaspora have remembered, transformed, and responded to the legacies of slavery and colonialism. Developed through the Global Curatorial Project, the exhibition travels across four continents between 2024 and 2028, with presentations in Washington, DC, Rio de Janeiro, Cape Town, Dakar, and Liverpool.

Through exhibitions, public programs, oral histories, artistic collaborations, and community-engagement initiatives, the project activates global conversations about freedom, memory, belonging, and the enduring impact of slavery. Developed through a model of shared authority among institutions and communities across four continents, the project foregrounds traditions of Black freedom-making alongside histories of slavery and colonialism.

Named one of 2025's most notable exhibitions by the New York Times. Read its full review. 

Read student reflections on the exhibition in South Africa and watch a news story on PBS exploring the intersection of history and art as an essention method of storytelling in the exhibition.

Awarded Best New Traveling Exhibition by the Association of American Museums, 2025

2021-2022 / Project Director

Make Good the Promises examined the unfinished history of Reconstruction and its continuing relevance to American democracy. Drawing on original scholarship, historical artifacts, and personal narratives, the exhibition explored the aspirations, achievements, and setbacks that followed emancipation while inviting visitors to consider the ongoing struggle to fulfill the promises of citizenship, equality, and justice.

"PAUL GARDULLO, co-curator of the Smithsonian's new exhibition on post-bellum Reconstruction had warned Lexington that it "played with time a bit." This was an understatement... (Read the full review "Reconstructing America" in The Economist, 2021.

"Many of the United States’ most pressing national questions–voting rights, racial equality before the law, the nature of citizenship–have their roots in the Reconstruction Amendments. Make Good the Promises successfully uses people-focused interpretation and objects to transform these topics from abstract legal debates into vital civil rights issues that determine the fundamental nature of what it means to be an American and the future of multiracial democracies globally….Make Good the Promises and its companion book make outstanding contributions to this essential dialogue in accessible and compelling presentations." The Public Historian, 2022.

2016-Present / Curator

The Power of Place is a core permanent exhibition within the National Museum of African American History and Culture that explores how communities, landscapes, and cultural traditions have shaped African American history and culture across the United States. Through ten place studies, including Tulsa, Oak Bluffs, the South Carolina Lowcountry, the Bronx, Lyles Station, and Angola Prison, the exhibition reveals the many ways African Americans have created places of belonging, resilience, creativity, and freedom in every region of the nation.

Developed as part of the museum's inaugural exhibitions and on view since the museum's opening in 2016, The Power of Place has been experienced by more than 13 million visitors. Together, its diverse cultural landscapes offer a sweeping view of American history through an African American lens while demonstrating how place continues to shape identity, memory, community, and cultural expression. 

Watch a CBS news story on The Power of Place and learn about the work with several of the communities and places profiled such as Lyles Station, Indiana, and Oak Bluffs on Martha's Vineyard.

2016-Present / Director and Curator

From No Return tells the story of the São José Paquete de Africa, an archaeologically recovered slave ship discovered in the Atlantic Ocean. Combining archaeology, historical research, and descendant-community collaboration, the exhibition transforms fragments recovered from the ocean floor into a powerful story of loss, survival, remembrance, and historical reckoning.

The exhibition remains on view at the National Museum of African American History and Culture and has expanded through a substantial digital exhibition that brings the story of the São José to audiences around the world. 

The Story of the São José and the wider work of the Slave Wrecks Project in recovering and reclaiming the stories of those who were torn from their homelands and forcibly transported aboard slave ships has been featured in news outlets around the world from the NPR, the New York Times and the New Yorker to CBS 60 minutes, The Guardian, The BBC, Le Monde and O Globo. Watch a video on the powerful story of recovery, reclamation and reckoning across continents.

2016-Present / Curator

Muhammad Ali: A Force for Change explores the life and legacy of one of the twentieth century's most influential athletes, activists, and public figures in the museum's permanent exhibition Making a Way Out of No Way.Through artifacts, film, photography, and personal stories, the exhibition examines Ali's impact on sports, civil rights, faith, and global humanitarianism while highlighting his enduring influence on American culture and public life.   

Read about how Lebron James and Maverick Carter were inspired by this depiction of how Ali’s contributions transcended the world of sport and helped lay the groundwork for the successful careers of so many African Americans in athletics and beyond.

2009-2010 / Co-Curator 

Drawing upon the extraordinary archive of the Scurlock Studio, Picturing the Promise explored generations of African American life in Washington, D.C. through portraiture, documentary photography, and community history.

Presented in the National Museum of African American History and Culture's inaugural gallery at the National Museum of American History, the exhibition helped introduce public audiences to the museum's curatorial vision while demonstrating the importance of everyday Black lives, institutions, achievement, and cultural expression within the American story. 

Read about Gardullo's work on curating the story of this pivotal photography studio 

2007 - 2016 Founding Curator

As one of the founding curators of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gardullo helped develop the museum's foundational collections and iconic objects, shape its inaugural exhibitions, and contribute to the interpretive frameworks that continue to guide the institution's work today. Working for nearly a decade before the museum opened to the public, he helped build collections, cultivate community partnerships, and develop exhibitions and projects that transformed an idea into one of the world's leading cultural institutions.

The work required developing collections, exhibitions, partnerships, and interpretive frameworks capable of telling the African American story on a national scale, helping establish the intellectual and public foundations of the museum before it opened its doors in 2016.

Since opening in 2016, the museum has welcomed more than 13 million visitors and has become one of the world's leading cultural and historical institutions.  Watch CBS 60 Minutes story featuring Gardullo, Lonnie G. Bunch, III and other colleagues on building the NMAAHC -- "A Monumental Project".  Read stories about Gardullo's efforts to collect key iconic objects related related to the Tuskegee Airmen, Angola Prison, and a "Freedom House" from Maryland.