Independent Curators International (ICI) supports the work of curators to help create stronger art communities through experimentation, collaboration, and international engagement. Curators are arts community leaders and organizers who champion artistic practice; build essential infrastructures and institutions; and generate public engagement with art. Our collaborative programs connect curators across generations, and across social, political and cultural borders. They form an international framework for sharing knowledge and resources — promoting cultural exchange, access to art, and public awareness for the curator’s role.
Lydia Y. Nichols

Lydia Y. Nichols is a native New Orleanian cultural critic and arts administrator. Her work centers the lived experiences of Africans in the Diaspora and prioritizes community accessibility. Lydia’s essays have appeared in Pelican Bomb, Liberator Magazine, Gathering of the Tribes Magazine, and The Killens Review. As co-curator of street art exhibition and Prospect P.3+ site ExhibitBE, Lydia researched and documented the history of the blighted apartment complex in which the work was created to guide the curatorial process, managed community programming and daily operations, and, after the exhibition closed, coordinated the #PaintWhereItAint Tour through which several ExhibitBE artists traveled across the southwest United States to collaborate with artists in other cities on community-centered public art projects. Since, Lydia has created “In/Between Spaces” - a mobile group exhibition series in a 26’ U-Haul that explores Black identity in various spheres of modern life and that travels to predominantly Black neighborhoods in New Orleans to engage those who have been alienated from the world of contemporary fine art. Lydia continues to manage production for artist Brandan “Bmike” Odums, including his first solo exhibition “Ephemeral Eternal” at Studio Be and, in collaboration with Welcome Table New Orleans, the Algiers Oral History and Public Art Intensive through which 24 high school youth are creating a freestanding mural based on interviews they conduct with elders on the evolution of race relations.
involved in:
Notes for Tomorrow
Notes for Tomorrow is a new exhibition conceived by ICI, featuring artworks selected by alumni of the Curatorial Intensive from around the world to reflect on a new global reality ushered in by the COVID-19 pandemic.
read more »Blindman Draws Lines: A Conversation with Steve Cannon
Curatorial Intensive alum Lydia Y. Nichols will converse with writer and scholar Steve Cannon, founder of A Gathering of the Tribes and a pioneer of the East Village literary and visual art scenes.
read more »2016 Curatorial Intensive in New Orleans: Public Symposium
The Curatorial Intensive participants for the 2016 New Orleans program will each present their exhibition and project proposals they have developed throughout the course of the week.
read more »Curatorial Intensive in New Orleans
ICI returns to New Orleans this March for the second Curatorial Intensive with the CAC New Orleans and Prospect New Orleans.
read more »