Independent Curators International supports the work of curators to help create stronger art communities through experimentation, collaboration, and international engagement.

Independent Curators International supports the work of curators to help create stronger art communities through experimentation, collaboration, and international engagement.

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Over the past eight years, the Curatorial Forum has provided over 280 curators from 30 U.S. states an opportunity to engage with their peers and explore significant issues in the field. Co-produced by ICI and EXPO CHICAGO, the Forum is an unmatched program for curatorial exchange that has fostered strong national and regional networks for collaboration.

In 2023, the Curatorial Forum brought together more than 40 curators from across the United States. It featured a keynote lecture by Victoria Noorthoorn (Director, Museo Moderno, Buenos Aires), and closed-door sessions focused on the notion of care in the museum and curatorial fields as it relates to accessibility, community engagement, labor conditions, and new ways of working with artists.

The 2023 edition of the Forum also saw the addition of the Chicago Assembly, a cohort of Chicago-based curators including Sheridan Tucker Anderson, Antawan I. Byrd, Yi Cao, Jadine Collingwood, Nolan Jimbo, Stephanie Koch (Curatorial Assembly participant 2022), Adia Sykes, Asha Iman Veal, and Leslie Wilson. This group convened in the months prior to the Forum and has continued to meet regularly to identify how the themes advanced during the Forum hold special significance for the Chicago community.

Also starting in 2023, participants in the Curatorial Forum were able to apply for the Barbara Nessim Curatorial Travel Award, a grant of $3,000 given annually to one curator to support their travel and research needs for a project that advances the work of one or more women artists. This year's grantee is Stephanie Seidel (Curator, Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami), whose project builds on the foundational research she conducted for the exhibition Betye Saar: Serious Moonlight, which focused on Saar's immersive, site-specific installations since 1988. The planned monograph project, Constellations—The Installations of Betye Saar, will explore the artist's unique ways of employing assemblage techniques and its deep entanglement with Black feminist thought.

Keynote
Victoria Noorthoorn

Victoria Noorthoorn is the Director of Museo Moderno, Buenos Aires.

Session Leaders
Taraneh Fazeli

Taraneh Fazeli (she/her/they) is an Iranian-American curator and cultural organizer.

Sarah Biscarra Dilley

Sarah Biscarra Dilley is Curator of Indigenous Programs & Community Engagement, Forge Project, Taghkanic, NY.

Kate Bowen

Kate Bowen is Executive Director of ACRE, Chicago, IL.

Sally Tallant

Sally Tallant is the President and Executive Director of the Queens Museum, New York.

Participating Curators
Taylor Renee Aldridge

Taylor Renee Aldridge is the visual arts curator and program manager at the California African American Museum (CAAM). 

Sheridan Tucker Anderson

Sheridan Tucker Anderson is a Chicago based, independent curator, art historian, and arts advocate.

Tizziana Baldenebro
Tizziana Baldenebro is the executive director at SPACES in Cleveland, Ohio.
Selam Bekele

Selam Beleke is Curator, MoAD SF, San Francisco, CA.

Alejo Benedetti

Alejo Benedetti is Acting Curator, Contemporary Art at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, AR.

Tyler Blackwell

Tyler Blackwell (he/him) is Curator of Contemporary Art at the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, KY, where he recently organized a major new reinstallation of the contemporary art collection.

Kate Bowen

Kate Bowen is Executive Director of ACRE, Chicago, IL.

Laura Burkhalter

Laura Burkhalter is a Curator at Des Moines Art Center.

Antawan I. Byrd

Antawan I. Byrd is the Weinberg Fellow at Northwestern University, Chicago, IL.

Isabel Casso

Isabel Casso is the Assistant Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.

Yi Cao

Yi Cao is a curator, writer, and art administrator based in Chicago and Beijing.

Jadine Collingwood

Jadine Collingwood is Assistant Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.

Alison Coplan

Alison Coplan is Senior Curator and Head of Programs at Swiss Institute.

Sarah Biscarra Dilley

Sarah Biscarra Dilley is Curator of Indigenous Programs & Community Engagement, Forge Project, Taghkanic, NY.

Emily Edwards

Emily Edwards is the Assistant Curator at Dallas Contemporary.

Georgia Erger

Georgia Erger is Associate Curator at the Frye Art Museum.

Taraneh Fazeli

Taraneh Fazeli (she/her/they) is an Iranian-American curator and cultural organizer.

Melissa E. Feldman

Melissa E. Feldman is an independent curator currently based in Harrisburg, PA.

Pujan Gandhi

Pujan Gandhi is the Jane Emison Assistant Curator of South & Southeast Asian Art at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN.

Andrea Hanley

Andrea R. Hanley is the chief curator at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Andria Hickey

Andria Hickey is Chief Curator at The Shed, New York.

Brian Holcombe

Brian Holcombe is the curator at the Moss Arts Center at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, VA.

Ashley Janke

Ashley Janke is the Assistant Curator at Wrightwood 659.

Jamillah James

Jamillah James is Manilow Senior Curator at MCA, Chicago, IL.

Alexander Jarman

Alexander Jarman is Assistant Curator of Exhibitions and Academic Outreach at the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art, Clinton, NY.

Nolan Jimbo

Nolan Jimbo is a curator based in Chicago.

Jared Ledesma

Jared Ledesma is Curator of 20th-Century Art and Contemporary Art at the North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) and the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA).

Lauren Leving

Lauren Leving is Curator at moCa Cleveland, Cleveland, OH.

Emily Liebert

Emily Liebert is Curator of Contemporary Art, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH.

Juli Lowe

Juli Lowe is Museum Manager at 21c Museum Hotel Chicago, Chicago, IL.

Eileen Jeng Lynch

Eileen Jeng Lynch is Director of Curatorial Programs at the Bronx Museum, Bronx, NY.

Leilani Lynch

Leilani Lynch is Associate Curator at MCA Denver, Denver, CO.

Jacqueline Saragoza McGilvray

Jacqueline Saragoza McGilvray is Curator and Exhibitions Manager at Contemporary at Blue Star, San Antonio, TX.

Srimoyee Mitra

Srimoyee Mitra is a curator and writer whose work is invested in building empathy and mutual respect by bringing together meaningful and diverse works of art and design.

Katie Pfohl

Katie Pfohl is the Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the New Orleans Museum of Art.

Julie Poitras Santos

Julie Poitras Santos is an artist, writer, curator, and currently the Director of Exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Art at MECA&D, in Portland, Maine.

Abigail Satinsky

Abigail Satinsky is Head of Public Programs at Tufts University Art Galleries, Boston, MA.

Stephanie Seidel

Stephanie Seidel is a curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami (ICA Miami).

Adia Sykes

Adia Sykes is an arts organizer and curator based in Chicago.

Sally Tallant

Sally Tallant is the President and Executive Director of the Queens Museum, New York.

Asha Iman Veal

Asha Iman Veal is Associate Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Photography.

April Watson

April Watson is Photography Curator at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO.

Manuela Well-Off-Man

Dr. Manuela Well-Off-Man is an art historian and chief curator at the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Juana Williams

Juana Williams is the Associate Curator of African-American Art at the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Jasmine Wilson

Jasmine Wilson is an independent writer, curator, and scholar from Atlanta, GA.

Leslie Wilson

Leslie M. Wilson is Associate Director for Academic Engagement and Research at the Art Institute of Chicago.


About EXPO CHICAGO
EXPO CHICAGO, The International Exposition of Contemporary & Modern Art features leading international galleries alongside one of the highest quality platforms for contemporary art and culture. Hosted within historic Navy Pier’s Festival Hall, EXPO CHICAGO presents a diverse program, including /Dialogues (presented in partnership with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago) and Exchange by Northern Trust, an unrivaled talks program for both public and VIP audiences; IN/SITU, dynamic on-site installations highlighting large-scale sculpture, film, and site-specific work; and major public art initiatives, including IN/SITU Outside, public art installed throughout Chicago Park District locations, and OVERRIDE | A Billboard Project, a curated selection of international artists throughout the city’s digital billboard network. The EXPO CHICAGO program also features an unprecedented commitment to host curatorial initiatives during the exposition, including the Curatorial Forum in partnership with Independent Curators International (ICI), and the Curatorial Exchange, which partners with foreign agencies and consulates to expand the exposition’s global reach. 

Credits
The 2023 Curatorial Forum is co-produced with EXPO CHICAGO, and made possible, in part, by the generous support of presenting sponsors 21c Hotel Museum Chicago and the Joyce Foundation; with additional support by UAP | Urban Art Projects; Terry Dowd, Inc; and Gallagher. The Barbara Nessim Curatorial Travel Award is funded by Barbara Nessim, an artist known for her lifelong multi-disciplinary art practice as well as her support of women in the arts.