Tabor Banquer (MS, Columbia University; BA, Louisiana State University) is a non-profit and fundraising executive with fifteen years of progressive experience securing transformative philanthropic investments for New York City-based arts and culture, healthcare, social services, and higher education organizations.

In January 2022, he joined the VLC’s team as the inaugural Director of Strategy and Advancement, a role he helped create with the intention of amplifying the VLC’s core capacities in the areas of strategic planning, fundraising, communications, marketing, public relations, and partnerships.

In his prior role as a Senior Director of Development at The New School, he oversaw the comprehensive fundraising programs for Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts and the VLC. At Lang, he designed and led the successful rollout of the college’s first multi-year campaign, raising $21 million to support students, faculty, and innovation in the curriculum. At the VLC, he has raised more than $6.8 million to enhance and expand the center's work with artists and public programming. He has been responsible for significantly increasing funding from individuals, including the endowment of the Jane Lombard Prize for Art and Social Justice, as well as from foundations including The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Boris Lurie Art Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, the Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation, and many others. Before joining The New School in 2012, he held fundraising positions at the Jewish Guild for the Blind, ICD-International Center for the Disabled, and Met Council, one of New York City’s leading multi-service anti-poverty organizations.

Tabor is a native of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and lives in Brooklyn.

banquert@newschool.edu.

Re'al Christian (MA, Hunter College; BS, New York University) is the Assistant Director of Editorial Initiatives at the Vera List Center, a role in which she manages the center’s editorial projects, including anthologies, artist books, exhibition booklets, communications, and the digital series Post/doc.

As an independent writer, her work explores issues related to identity, diasporas, and media. Her essays, interviews, and reviews have appeared in Art in America, Artforum, The Brooklyn Rail, BOMB Magazine, and ART PAPERS, where she is a Contributing Editor. She has written texts for catalogues and anthologies including And ever an edge (Studio Museum in Harlem), Track Changes: A Handbook for Art Criticism (Paper Monument), Howardena Pindell: Numbers/Pathways/Grids (Garth Greenan and Dieu Donné), and On the Town: A Performa Compendium 2016–2021 (Gregory R. Miller & Co.), among others. She has presented exhibitions and public programs at Dieu Donné, Miriam Gallery, the International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP), the Rubin Foundation, and Smack Mellon. Previously, she was a graduate curatorial fellow at the Hunter College Art Galleries, where she worked on the exhibitions The Black Index (2020–21) and Life as Activity: David Lamelas (2021), as well as their accompanying publications. Christian has also held appointments at the College Art Association, The Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Grey Art Gallery at New York University.

She received her MA in Art History from Hunter College and holds a bachelor’s degree in Art History and Media, Culture, and Communication from New York University.

rchristian@newschool.edu.

Carin Kuoni (MA University of Zurich; BA Sorbonne) is a curator, writer, and arts administrator whose work examines how contemporary artistic practices reflect and inform social, political, and cultural conditions. She is the Senior Director and Chief Curator of the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School and Assistant Professor of Visual Studies at the university. From 1998 to 2003, she was director of exhibitions at Independent Curators International (ICI) and from 1992 to 1997 director of The Swiss Institute.

A founding member of the artists' collective REPOhistory, Kuoni has curated and co-curated numerous transdisciplinary exhibitions on issues such as contemporary Native American identity and colonial, 19th-century portraiture (Red River Crossings, Swiss Institute); democratic, participatory processes (OURS: Democracy in the Age of Branding, Parsons School of Design); artistic and social networks (The Grand Tour, Swiss Institute; #searchunderoccupy, Parsons); new notions of transient and temporary spaces (Thin Skin, ICI traveling exhibition); or agency (The Puppet Show, ICA Philadelphia et al; Post-Speculation, P!, New York). Many are accompanied by exhibition catalogues.

Kuoni is editor and co-editor of several anthologies, among them Energy Plan for the Western Man: Joseph Beuys in America (Four Walls Eight Windows); Words of Wisdom: A Curator's Vademecum (ICI), Considering Forgiveness (Vera List Center), Speculation, Now (VLC/Duke University Press), Entry Points: The Vera List Center Field Guide to Art and Social Justice (Duke University Press/VLC, Assuming Boycott: Resistance, Agency, and Cultural Production (VLC), and ART. An Index to (see also POLITICS): 25 Years of Vera List Center Fellowships (VLC).

Kuoni is the recipient of a 2014 Andy Warhol Foundation Curatorial Fellowship, directed SITAC XII: Arte, justamente in Mexico City in 2015, and is a Travel Companion for the 57th Carnegie International in 2018.

kuonic@newschool.edu.

Camila Palomino is Curatorial Assistant at the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School. She is a curator and researcher from New York City.

Most recently, Palomino was the 2021–2022 Curator in Residence at Abrons Arts Center and the 2022 In-Practice Curatorial Fellow at SculptureCenter. She has held curatorial positions and contributed research to exhibitions at The Whitney Museum of American Art, MoMA PS1, The Drawing Center, and the 58th Carnegie International. Palomino is a curatorial consultant at Amie Gross Architects on a project that commissions artworks by Queens-based artists for new affordable housing buildings in the borough. She has also been a visiting lecturer in The Photography Program at Bard College. She holds a BA from the University of Chicago and an MA in Curatorial Studies from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College.

Eriola Pira is curator at the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School. Most recently, as Director of Programs, Pira led Art in General's international collaborations, residencies, public events, and fellowship programs building on her professional networks and experiences as Program Director and Curator at the artist-founded NARS Foundation, as Program Director for The Foundation for Culture and Society, where she led a network and exchange program between 12 art organizations throughout Central and Eastern Europe and the US. In this capacity, she also organized a number of international exhibitions, publications and symposia, and created a Curatorial Fellowship.

She has presented exhibitions, talks, and collaborated with institutions worldwide including: BRIC (New York), Dokufest (Prizren), ExitArt (New York), Center for Contemporary Art Futura (Prague) Independent Curators International (New York), International Studio and Curatorial Program (New York), Istanbul Modern (Istanbul), Jindřich Chalupecký Society (Prague), Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (New York), New York Foundation for the Arts (New York), Residency Unlimited (New York), Rubin Foundation (New York), Slought Foundation (Philadelphia), Slovak National Gallery (Bratislava), Studio Museum in Harlem (New York), Stacion Center for Contemporary Art (Prishtina), Swimming Pool (Sofia), Tirana Institute for Contemporary Art (Tirana), and many others. Pira was a Curatorial Advisor for the 2019 BRIC South Brooklyn Biennial and has served as editor at Guernica magazine.

A native of Albania, Pira has an MA in Visual Culture Theory from New York University and is the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, a Global Cultural Leadership Fellowship, and a Jeannette K. Watson Fellowship.

pirae@newschool.edu

Adrienne Umeh (AB Princeton University) is the Director of Operations and Budget at the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School. She spent over nine years as the Executive Director of the Arthur Ashe Learning Center, an educational nonprofit that created curricula, exhibits and other programming to promote the life and legacy of Arthur Ashe. She has managed a fundraising project that leverages art portfolios to support educational scholarships, logistics for various traveling exhibitions, taught middle school English in rural Tanzania and has helped publish multiple books and exhibition catalogs.

umeha@newschool.edu

Bella De Angelis is a Canadian graphic designer and writer originally from Burlington, ON now based in New York City. She is currently pursuing her MA in Creative Publishing and Critical Journalism at The New School for Social Research and is the editor-in-chief of Dough Magazine, a publication she founded during her undergraduate studies. This publication, as well as her written work, takes the shape of long-form cultural criticism that mostly examines macroeconomic phenomena through a pop-cultural lens and ultimately, renders their complexity more easily digestible through the use of accessible language and visual storytelling. With an MA Project Grant from NSSR, she is now working on the second issue of her magazine which will center the topic of "recession."

Melisa Erşan is currently pursuing her Master's degree in the Design and Technology program at Parsons School of Design. She completed her undergraduate studies at Koç University in Istanbul, where she earned a double major in Psychology and Media & Visual Arts. During her undergraduate studies, she focused her research on the malleability of spatial skills in preschool children by bridging developmental psychology and toy design disciplines to promote joyful STEAM development. At Parsons, her focus is on expanding her knowledge in physical computing methods and creative coding practices. Her goal is to merge maternal ancestral knowledge and practices with contemporary design, thereby creating a powerful dialogue between the past and the future. Her Turkish cultural roots and traditional artisanship inspire her to explore and transform the beauty of Turkish traditional patterns into modern-day masterpieces.

In addition to her academic practices, she has been working on various graphic and communications design projects for the past 4 years as a creative designer.

Zaria Simone George is a graduate assistant at the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School, and is currently pursuing an MA in the Fashion Studies program at Parsons School of Design. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and graduate of Wellesley College, having obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Art History. Prior to graduate studies at Parsons, she had conducted a thesis exploring the ways in which certain Nuyorican photographers have documented the Puerto Rican community in New York City. Her research interests include cultural identities, the Latin American and African diaspora, and gender and sexuality. She particularly seeks to investigate the ways in which marginalized Americans have expressed autonomy through art and design.

Eliot Lambert is an artist from London currently pursuing an MFA in Design and Technology at Parsons School of Design. She studied a Liberal Arts BA at the University of Bristol in England and majored in filmmaking and literature. Her experience so far has been grounded in feminist politics; she has interned for PEEQUAL, the UK’s first women’s urinal startup, co-ran an intersectional feminist student magazine, and written her thesis on the intersection between AI and feminism. She wants to design speculatively, and to be a public-facing artist fueled by a social justice agenda. Her other research interests include critical design, postmodernist fiction, late-stage capitalism, and the absurdity of the internet/popular culture.

Zano Nkosi is currently pursuing her Masters of Science in Economics at the New School for Social Research. She received her undergrad at Wheaton college in Massachusetts in Economics with a minor in Gender Studies.

Having founded a creative collective in Johannesburg, South Africa where Zano is from, she has always had an interest in the intersection of art, fashion and music and how that influences the way in which we see ourselves and interact with the world. Furthermore, she has extended these interests into furthering her passions in music as a DJ and also as a photographer.

João is a Law graduate from São Paulo - Brazil, and is currently pursuing a MA in Liberal Studies at The New School for Social Research. During his years as a legal student he focused his studies and work on human rights, especially immigration, refugee and indigenous matters. For the past three years João has also dedicated himself to filmmaking, being the director and producer of two short films 'Heterotopia' and 'Stage,' both screened and awarded in a number of festivals in Brazil and other countries. As a NSSR student João focuses his research in the areas of gender, sexuality, media and memory - He was recently awarded a project grant by The New School for his project "Mapping Queer Memory: Excavating (In)Visible Pasts to Understand Present (In)Justices" in order to explore and understand the transmission and preservation of LGBTQ+ community memory across the globe, but mainly in the global south.

Rebecca Rivera is currently pursuing her Master’s in International Affairs with a concentration in Governance & Rights at the Schools for Public Engagement. She holds an undergraduate in Political Science and a minor in Gender Studies from the University of Texas – Rio Grande Valley and her research interests consist in feminist politics, Latin American and Mexican politics, migration policy and gender. Previous research projects she's worked on have focused in Korean feminism, border migration policies, and abortion rights in the United States. In the future, she wishes to pursue a PhD in Politics at The New School for Social Research and use her master’s to focus on comparative politics and study migration in Mexico.

Jan is the Justice Capital and Public Engagement Fellow supporting art and politics programs with the Vera List Center. She is also a Music and Podcasts Content Strategy Lead at YouTube, where she is responsible for cultural campaigns and operations for a global team. She previously worked at Atlantic Media.

Jan completed her undergraduate studies at UCLA, holding degrees in World Arts & Cultures and Political Science. She is interested in building a softer and more just world. She enjoys carving out calmness, finding balance and engaging with the documentary arts.

She was born in the Virgin Islands, raised in San Francisco and currently lives in New York.

Anna Hope Emerson, Finance Student Assistant, 2022–2023
Paria Ahmadi, Curatorial Intern, 2022–2023
Ash Moniz, Graduate Student Assistant, 2021–2023
Angelica Hom, Evaluation and Reporting Senior Student Assistant Specialist, 2022–2023
Chidinma Adi, Programs Student Assistant, 2022–2023
Aryana Elizabeth Ghazi Hessami, Art and Social Justice Fellow, 2020-2022
Tania Aparicio, Graduate Student Fellow, 2020–2022
Marianne Hughes, Database Management Student Assistant, 2021–2022
Regan Loggans, Borderlands Curatorial Fellow, 2021–2022
Molly Ragan, Graduate Student Assistant, 2021–2022
Nelly Kobanenko, Graduate Student Assistant, 2021
Sofia D’Amico, CCS Bard Summer Curatorial Fellow, 2021
Heran Abate, Curatorial Assistant, 2019–2021
Wen Zhuang, Assistant Director of Editorial Initiatives, 2020–2021
Gabriela Ramos, Justice Capital Initiative Student Fellow, John Jay College, 2021
Maryna Arabei, Graduate Student Assistant, 2020–2021
Joshua van Biema, Summer Curatorial Intern, 2020
Kevin Martinez, Student Assistant, 2020
Gabriela Lopez Dena, Curatorial Associate, 2018–2019, and Vera List Center Graduate Student Fellow, Art & Social Justice, 2017–2018
Bernadette Figueroa, Graduate Student Assistant, 2018–2019
Katherine Jackson, Editorial Assistant, 2018–2019
Corby Johnson, Vera List Center Graduate Student Fellow, International Affairs and Media and Culture, 2018–2019
Emily Donnelly, Manager of Programs and Administration, 2014–2019
Sonia Zhang, Graduate Student Assistant, 2017–2018
Lara Fresko Madra, Summer Curatorial Intern, 2019
Diana Cao, Graduate Student Assistant, 2018–2019
Amanda Parmer, Curator, 2015–2018
Zoe Carey, Associate Editor, 2013–2018
Jinglun Zhu, CCS Bard Summer Curatorial Intern, 2018
Pooja Seshadri, Summer Curatorial Intern, 2018
Nailah F. Davis, Student Assistant, 2017–2018
Nina Olivetti, Graduate Student Assistant, 2017–2018
Michael Castrovilla, Graduate Student Fellow, International Affairs, Media and Culture, 2017
Sanna Almajedi, Summer Curatorial Intern, 2017
Bianca Rogers, VLC Graduate Student Fellow, International Affairs, Media and Culture, 2015–2016
Marta Cacciavillani, CCS Bard Summer Curatorial Intern, 2016
Eli Nadeau, Graduate Student Fellow, Art & Social Justice, 2016
Johanna Taylor, Programs Associate, 2012–2016
Sascia Bailer, Graduate Student Fellow, Art & Social Justice, 2014–2015
Kaitlin Chan, Summer Curatorial Intern, 2015
Hannah Rocchi, Summer Curatorial Intern, 2015
Kyle Robert Nelson, Editorial Assistant, Speculation, Now
Chelsea Haines, Curatorial Associate, Biennial Prize Reader, 2012–2015
Alani Bass, Summer Curatorial Intern, 2014
Juliet Tarantino, Fellowship Research Assistant 2012–2014
Elizabeth Larison, Summer Curatorial Intern, 2014
Samantha L. Plesser, Summer Intern, 2014
Naomi Miller, Programs Manager, 2013–2014
Jocelyn Edens, Summer Curatorial Intern, 2013
Miina Hujala, Summer Curatorial Intern, 2013
Annie Shaw, Senior Office Assistant, 2010–2013
Agnes Szanyi, Archivist, 2012–2013
Helena Vilalta, Summer Curatorial Intern, 2011
Sonia Louise Davis, Summer Curatorial Intern, 2011
Alyssa Pheobus, Senior Office Assistant, 2008–2009
Julie Hartshorn-Snavely, Archivist and Special Projects Administrator, 2008-2012