Larissa Nez is the 2022–2024 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 works 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 supports 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 is also involved in Indigenous-led programs, including Matti Aikio’s 2022–2023 Sámi Fellowship project and Aboriginal collective proppaNOW’s presentation at the VLC Forum 2023. proppaNOW is the recipient of the 2022–2024 Jane Lombard Prize for Art and Social Justice.

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.