Custom Categories: Fellows

Larissa Nez is of the Mud People and born for 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. She was born and raised on the Navajo Nation, in a small community in northern Arizona. Larissa is currently a first-year Master of Arts student in Public Humanities at Brown University. She is an alumna of the University of Notre Dame where she earned her Bachelor of Arts in Art History and Sociology. Larissa’s academic research interests include modern and contemporary art, cultural heritage and historic preservation, critical theory, Diné and Indigenous Studies, Black Studies, and public health. Her words, research, and knowledge have been published in the University of Michigan – NCID’s Spark Magazine, Terra Incognita Media, ND Today, SELF Magazine, the NM Political Reporter, Teen Vogue, The South Bend Tribune, and The Observer. Larissa holds a Special Higher Education Fellowship with the American Indian Graduate Center and a Curatorial Fellowship with the Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity at Brown University. She is the recipient of awards from the American Indian Graduate Center, Navajo Nation, Davis-Putter Scholarship Fund, Council for Museum Anthropology, Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums, Portland Community College, and the Institute for International Education. / Hashtł’ishnii nishłį, / Dził Tł’ahnii báshíshchíín. / Táchii’nii éí da shicheii. / Tótsohnii éí da shinálí. / Ákó t’éégo Diné Asdzáán nishłį.”

Project: Larissa will assist with the development of educational materials for the traveling exhibition, “Color Riot!”, featuring Navajo textiles from c. 1860 to 2018.

Nidhi Gandhi (she/her) is a curator and art history scholar whose work calls attention to craft and vernacular art practices and the histories of black, brown, and diasporic communities. Currently a Curatorial Research Assistant at the Clark Art Institute, Nidhi holds a B.A. from Pomona College and an M.A. in Art History from Williams College. She has previously worked with arts non-profits and museums including Bronx Council on the Arts, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College. Forthcoming curatorial projects include a solo exhibition by artist Kameelah Janan Rasheed at the Williams College Museum of Art.

Project: Nidhi will assist in the development of at least one of two exhibition projects for the Decorative Arts department at the Brooklyn Museum: “Social Justice and Craft” or “Cultural Appropriation and the Decorative Arts.”

Sarah Ahmed is a Master’s student in the Department of Art History at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Born in Cairo and raised in Texas, she holds a Bachelor’s degree in Middle Eastern Studies and International Relations from the University of Texas at Austin. She is interested in modern and contemporary Arab artistic production and its engagement with Middle Eastern history, heritage, and resistance. Sarah is a community organizer and is passionate about engaging the Arab community through art and education.

Project: Sarah will assist with the exhibition “Women Defining Women in Contemporary Art of the East and Beyond”, planned for 2023, which will present the work of artists who are women and were born or live in what can broadly be termed Islamic societies.

Susannah Stern is an arts practitioner with an interest in a variety of disciplines. Born and raised in central New Jersey, Susannah attended American University where she received a bachelor’s degree in communication studies with a minor in anthropology. While studying in Washington, D.C., Susannah fell in love with the city and decided to focus her career on arts and humanities
in the region. Her professional experience ranges from education to visitor experience to curation with her most recent position being at ARTECHOUSE — the first art and tech-focused space in D.C. Susannah’s passion lies in bridging the gap between the general public and arts institutions by helping audiences recognize the importance of artistic experiences in their everyday lives.

Mehves Lelic is an Istanbul-born artist, curator and educator currently based on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. She serves as Curator at the Academy Art Museum and is currently working a number of exhibitions, including Norma Morgan: Enchanted World and Miro in New York: Miro, Hayter and Atelier 17, 1947. She holds a BA from the University of Chicago and she is currently an MFA candidate at Bard College. She has been awarded the National Geographic Expeditions Council Grant, the Turkish Cultural Foundation Cultural Exchange Fellowship, and the City of Chicago Individual Artists Program Grant. She has previously served as a Teaching Artist at Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and Adjunct Professor at Anne Arundel Community College. Her work has been exhibited and published widely, in venues including the Rotterdam Photo Festival, ICA Baltimore, the Ogden Museum, Institute des Cultures D’Islam, Paris, Der Greif, Aesthetica Magazine, Lenscratch, C41, and others.

Johanna Obenda is a cultural practitioner, curator, and educator. She is currently a Researcher and Exhibition Development Specialist at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). Johanna earned a B.A. in History from the University of Alabama and a M.A. in Public Humanities from Brown University where she was the Graduate
Fellow at the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice. She has held a fellowship at the Yale University Art Gallery and internships at the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. At NMAAHC, Johanna is contributing to research and exhibition development for an upcoming traveling exhibition on the history of global slavery and its contemporary resonances, bringing her commitment to highlighting diverse narratives of the African diaspora, responsible storytelling, and museum education pedagogy to the curatorial process.

Sua Mendez was born in Ecuador and raised in NYC. She is currently a graduate student at Seton Hall University where she is studying Museum Professions with a professional track focus of Museum Registration and Collections Management. Sua started as a dual degree B.A / M.A. student and transitioned into a full-time graduate student after graduating Summa Cum Laude with a B.A. in Art History. She worked as a Gallery and Collections Assistant at Seton Hall’s Walsh Gallery for a year while completing her B.A., and has further interned at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Macculloch Hall Historical Museum, the Queens Museum, the Queen’s Historical Society, the Richard Avedon Foundation, and currently serves as a Collections Management intern at the Rubin Museum of Art.

Project: Sua will work in the renowned Morgan Library photography collection and assist with a comprehensive review and updating of the photography collection online database.

Join us for a discussion with our 2020 ArtTable Fellows where they will be discussing their projects and experiences with the ArtTable Fellowship Program. This is a wonderful opportunity to meet our current fellowship cohort and learn more about the ArtTable Fellowship Program and the opportunities it provides to emerging professionals. We are pleased to be celebrate 20 years of this impactful program. Click here to read more about our Impact initiatives.

Since the year 2000, ArtTable has conducted a Fellowship Program to address the marked lack of diversity in arts employment. The Fellowship provides quality experiences and mentorship to female-identifying graduate students and emerging professionals from backgrounds generally underrepresented in the field to aid their transition from academic to professional careers. Through one-on-one mentoring relationships at select museums and cultural institutions, fellows have the opportunity to work with established leaders and gain exposure to a range of professional activities.

The ArtTable Fellowship Program is partnering this year with the Chrysler Museum of Art (Norfolk, VA); The Laundromat Project (New York, NY), the Museum of Chinese in America (New York, NY); Socrates Sculpture Park (Long Island City, NY); Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center (Oklahoma City, OK); The Arts Student League of New York (New York, NY); LACE, Los Angeles Contemporary (Los Angeles, CA); Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco, CA); and The Morgan Library & Museum (New York, NY)

 

Alana Tapaha was born and raised on the Navajo Reservation in the Four Corners region of Red Mesa, Utah. She resides in a small town of Cedar City, Utah where she graduated from Southern Utah University, with a Bachelors’ in Fine Arts in Graphic Design the 2019.

Alana’s exhibitions include her Senior Exhibition at the SUMA Museum at Southern Utah University. Included in this exhibit was her handcrafted booklet featuring the “Navajo Sacred Animals” which used letterpress, linocut, inkjet, and pigment linear. 

Gina Adam’s, an internationally recognized indiginous artist, was Dartmouth’s 2019 summer visiting artist. During Gina’s artist residency, Alana had the honor to be her assistant. As the assistant, Alana was a featured artist in Gina Adam’s Solo Exhibition and was included in “Gina Adam’s Catalog” book. In addition, Alana designed her exhibition catalogue and posters and designed Gina’s Open Letter Cutting Sessions at Dartmouth and the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Alana is an emerging designer who wishes to express and amplify the Navajo Culture and its moral teachings and language through design and illustration. Alana’s artistic desire is to share the Navajo story with the younger population and beyond, to create continuity between generations.

2020 has been a very exciting summer for Alana as she is participating in the ArtTable’s Fellowship for the Oklahoma Contemporary remotely in Cedar City, Utah.

Future aspirations include continuing to develop her Navajo language series and the passion to help support other Native heritages in her work. Also to learn more about Museum curatorial activities and behind the scenes practices, and to elevate underrepresented artistic voices within the museum setting and beyond. Another goal is to attend Rhode Island School of Design for a Master’s of Art.

Lisa Yin Zhang is an artist, art historian, and writer, based in Queens, NY. She is a graduate of Williams College, and is interested in marginal narratives of modern and contemporary art history.

Project: Lisa will work with the curatorial team to conduct research in various archives and secure items for the Spring 2021 exhibition about Iris Chang, a journalist that wrote about the atrocities committed against the Chinese during World War II.