Chicago Curatorial Seminar 2023

In the 2023 Chicago Curatorial Seminar, seven Chicago-based BIPOC curators met bi-monthly from September to December 2023 for discussion-based seminars; site visits, shared reading, and to devleop their curatorial practice. Over the course of the seminar, led by ICI staff, guest curators, artists, and arts professionals, each participant also workshopped a proposal for an exhibition or similar project and received individual feedback from hand-selected mentors. Curator-led site visits across Chicago offered valuable perspective on the local context and insights from experts, including Rhona Hoffman Gallery with Julia Birka-White, Archive House with Barédu Ahmed, Edith Farnsworth House with Alberto Ortega, and The Renaissance Society with Karsten Lund.

About the Curatorial Seminar

ICI's Curatorial Seminar is a free professional development program that supports emerging curators to advance their practice. It centers a first-person approach to curating, and focuses on strengthening curatorial practices that support overlooked artists and engage with local art communities while working outside of a large institution. This unique program offers opportunities to gain knowledge and resources through ICI’s network, share ideas, and think through developments in one's own curatorial practice. Through this process, the Seminar seeks to build an affirming network of peers who connect around common values, and support the sharing of knowledge among early-career curators.

Credits
The Chicago Curatorial Seminar is made possible by Joyce Foundation, with additional support from Teiger Foundation.

Participants

Mariela Acuña

Mariela Acuña is an art administrator, curator, and occasional weaver from San José, Costa Rica, currently based in Chicago.

Inés Arango-Guingue

Inés Arango-Guingue is a Colombian curator, arts administrator, writer, and editor.

John H. Guevara

John H. Guevara is a curator, art worker, and emerging art writer raised and based in Chicago.

Dawn Johnson

Dawn Johnson is a native of Chicago’s South Side and an emerging historian and curator.

Denny Mwaura

Denny Mwaura is a curator-writer based in Chicago.

Isra Rene

Isra Rene is an artist and writer from Capitol Heights, Maryland, currently based in Chicago.

Paula Volpato

Paula Volpato is a Brazilian researcher and curator trained as an architect and based in New York City.

Faculty and Mentors

Rachel Adams

Rachel Adams is the Chief Curator and Director of Programs at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts.

Baredu Ahmed

Esteban King Álvarez

Esteban King Álvarez (México City, 1986) is researcher, art historian and curator.

Brandon Alvendia

Brandon Alvendia, an artist, curator, and educator, actively promotes artist-run initiatives across North America, fostering community-driven exhibitions, events, and publications.

Jordan Amirkhani

Dr. Jordan Amirkhani is Curator of Rivers Institute for Contemporary Art & Thought—a non-profit institute for research, publishing, and exhibitions of contemporary art based in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Ionit Behar

Ionit Behar is the Marilyn and Larry Fields Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.

Julia Birka-White

Julia Birka-White is Director at Rhona Hoffman Gallery.

Stephanie Cristello

Stephanie Cristello (b. 1991, Toronto, ON) is a contemporary art critic, curator, and author based in Chicago, IL.

Kaitlin Garcia-Maestas

Kaitlin Garcia-Maestas is the Curator and Director of Exhibitions at Socrates Sculpture Park in New York.

Ashley Janke

Ashley Janke is the Assistant Curator at Wrightwood 659.

Ross Stanton Jordan

Ross Stanton Jordan is Curator at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum in Chicago, IL.

Karsten Lund

Karsten Lund is Senior Curator at the Renaissance Society, Chicago.

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.

Alberto Ortega

Alberto Ortega-Trejo is a Mexican artist and architectural researcher based in Chicago, USA and Pachuca, Mexico.

Risa Puleo

Risa Puleo is an independent curator and one of a team of curators organizing the 2023 Counterpublics Triennial in St. Louis.

Stephanie Seidel

Stephanie Seidel is Head of Contemporary Art / Curator, Art after 1960 at Kunstmuseum Basel.

Jodi Throckmorton

Jodi Throckmorton is Chief Curator at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center.

Leslie Wilson

Leslie M. Wilson is academic curator and director of research programs at the Art Institute of Chicago.

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