Announcement

NEW APPOINTMENTS AND STAFF PROMOTIONS AT THE VLC

On the successful conclusion of the VLC Forum 2022, we are thrilled to announce several appointments and promotions.

Larissa Nez has recently been appointed as the 2022–2023 Borderlands Curatorial Fellow, a one-year appointment that is part of the Borderlands Initiative, a joint project between the VLC and the Tempe, Arizona-based Center for the Imagination in the Borderlands at Arizona State University.

As the Borderlands Curatorial Fellow, Nez will work closely with the curatorial team across Indigenous initiatives and programming at the VLC. Appointed alongside the two 2022-2024 Borderlands Artist Fellows Beatriz Cortez and Fox Maxy, Nez will support their projects and maintain vibrant and reciprocal connections between the VLC and CIB and their respective communities. The Borderlands Curatorial Fellowship encourages independent research study, writing, and the development of public programs related to the artists’ fellowship projects.

Nez will also be involved in upcoming Indigenous-led programs, which include Matti Aikio’s 2022–2023 Sámi Fellowship project and Aboriginal collective proppaNOW’s presentation at the VLC Forum 2023. proppaNOW was recently awarded the 2022–2024 Jane Lombard Prize for Art and Social Justice.

With dedicated curatorial and professional development opportunities, Nez will advance her research into modes of resistance and survival expressed through modern and contemporary visual and performing arts, archival research exploring strategies of refusal, possibility, and the embodiment of memory and its liberatory potential.

Larissa Nez is an enrolled citizen of the Diné (Navajo) Nation. She was born and raised in the Navajo Nation, in a small community in Northern Arizona. She is of the Mud People and was born to the Mountain Cove People. Her maternal grandfather is of the Red Running into the Water People, and her paternal grandfather is of the Big Water People. Larissa earned her BA in Art History with a minor in Sociology from the University of Notre Dame and her MA in Public Humanities from Brown University. She is currently a PhD student in Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research explores the intersections between Art History, Cultural Studies, Critical Theory, Indigenous Studies, and Black Studies.

Additionally, the Vera List Center recently promoted Eriola Pira and Adrienne Umeh, whose contributions over the last three years have galvanized the Center’s programming and operation and propelled it into its 30th year. Pira was promoted to Curator and Director of Programs, and Umeh to Director of Operations and Budget. In their new roles, Pira and Umeh, who arrived at the VLC in 2019 as Curator and Assistant Director of Operations respectively, will support the Center’s 2022–2027 Long Range Plan alongside an expanded team, which includes Carin Kuoni, Senior Director and Chief Curator; Tabor Banquer, Director of Strategy and Advancement; Re’al Christian, Assistant Director of Editorial Initiatives, and Camila Palomino, Curatorial Assistant. Following a successful 2022 Forum and a robust year of fellowship projects, exhibitions, seminars, and publications, the VLC celebrates its 30th anniversary in a position of strength and with renewed clarity, purpose, and organizational capacity.

We are also pleased to share news about the Vera List Center Academic Advisory Council: Ujju Aggarwal, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Experiential Learning, Schools of Public Engagement; Andrea Geyer, Associate Professor New Genres/Fine Arts, Parsons; Cresa Pugh, Assistant Professor of Sociology, NSSR and Lang; Joshua Scannell, Assistant Professor, School of Media Studies, SPE; Jeannine Tang, Assistant Professor, Modern/Contemporary Art History and Visual Studies, Lang; and Fay Victor, Interim Program Director, MMPC, and Part-time Faculty, School of Jazz, CoPA.

Professor Ujju Aggarwal has also joined the Vera List Center Board as ex officio faculty member, along with PhD candidate Aryana Ghazi Hessami as ex officio student member.