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.
Savanah Pennell

Savanah Pennell is an artist, activist, and curator from Gilbert, Arizona. She is currently based in New York City and is working on a series of projects revolving around borders, identity, and memory. Savanah received her BA in Art History from Arizona State University in December of 2016, and her MA in Arts Politics from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2019. She has recently shown artwork at the Fringe Art Bath Festival in Bath, UK, and has showcased her co-created video installation and conversation based event From Palestine to Mexico: Fronteras, Hudud, Borders at the Bowery Poetry Club. In 2019 Savanah was awarded the Tisch Initiative for Creative Research Grant to attend the Sharjah Biennial 14 and to investigate the role of socially engaged art in the biennial setting. She has also recently launched her co-curated online collection of artists Insert Woman Here. This collection is an ongoing database of female artists who work within the theme of unseen labor. Savanah has worked in various capacities for such institutions as the ASU Art Museum, the Museum of Walking, and Scottsdale Public Art. She has also been an art educator, working as an afterschool art instructor for Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Scottsdale. As an activist, Savanah has worked with such organizations as Amnesty International USA as an organizer of student chapters and coordinator of events revolving around campaigns to end human rights abuses.
involved in:
2019 Curatorial Intensive in Auckland: Public Symposium
The Curatorial Intensive participants of the 2019 Auckland program will each present their project proposals that they have been developing over the course of the program.
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In collaboration with Artspace Aotearoa, ICI presents the first Curatorial Intensive in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand. This Intensive draws upon the diverse cultural environment from Auckland and the greater te Moana Nui-a-Kiwa Pacific Ocean region. This Intensive anticipates Artspace Aotearoa’s new programme ‘The Drift,’ which will examine and respond to alternative approaches to artistic education.
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