Asha Iman Veal is a curator of contemporary art (the Museum of Contemporary Photography) and an art school professor (School of the Art Institute of Chicago). Her exhibitions Beautiful Diaspora / You Are Not the Lesser Part (2022) and LOVE: Still Not the Lesser (2023) brought together cross-diasporic conversations between global artists Xyza Cruz Bacani, Widline Cadet, Cog•nate Collective, Sunil Gupta, Kelvin Haizel, Ngadi Smart, and more; and celebrations of love and desire by Jorian Charlton, Jess T. Dugan, and Mous Lamrabat, among others. Her Chicago Architecture Biennial 2021 exhibition and public program series, RAISIN (vol. 1), commissioned several new artworks and generated community among more than 30 global artists, including Işıl Eğrikavuk, Amanda Williams, and Tintin Wulia. Through her classes in the Department of Arts Administration & Policy at SAIC, she expanded direct curricular links to global arts, culture, and multimedia discourses by inviting and hosting more than 100 virtual and in-person discussions with guests such as Yane Calovski and Hristina Ivanoska, 2015 International Venice Biennial – Pavilion of the Republic of Macedonia artists; the late Bisi Silva, CCA Lagos founder; and David Ennio Minor, ballet dancer and movement adviser for global science and robot technology. Asha Iman has been invited as a distinguished jury reviewer for awards and residencies, including the East African Photography Awards, Earth Photo Award by Forestry England and the Royal Geographical Society, Terra Foundation US, Visual Studies Workshop NY, University of Chicago Arts + Public Life, Arts Work Fund Chicago, and more. She has been an invited portfolio reviewer and crit panelist for the FORMAT International Photography Festival UK, FotoFest Houston, University of Chicago DOVA, RISDI, Chicago Artist Coalition, and others. Veal has been a guest lecturer and panelist for international cultural institutions such as GRAIN Projects UK, Pakhuis de Zwijger Amsterdam, Istituto Italiano di Cultura Chicago, Humanity In Action – Netherlands, San Diego State University, Midwest Art Historical Society, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and more; and has been interviewed by media outlets including The New York Times, WBEZ NPR 91.5, NBC 5 Chicago, and CBS 2 Chicago; and was featured in Newcity magazine’s 2022 Visual Vanguard Awards. She is a member of the ORACLE Conference of International Photography Curators, Independent Curators International – Curatorial Forum and Chicago Assembly (2023 cohorts), BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt Responsible Leaders Network (North America/global table), Humanity in Action & Alfred Landecker Foundation senior fellows network (EU/UK/US), and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs’ Emerging Leaders cohort. She is a board member of Experimental Sound Studio and Audible Gallery (Chicago), and Filter Photo (Chicago). Previous grant supporters of her exhibitions include the National Endowment of the Arts, Andy Warhol Foundation, The Joyce Foundation; BMW Foundation, Humanity in Action/Alfred Landecker Foundation, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, and others. Her publications include Apsaalooke: Art & Tradition (editor, 2006); The Places We’ve Been: Field Reports from Travelers Under 35 (editor, 2013); Ground Floor Biennial (co-editor, 2018); and Dark Matter: Celestial Messages of Love... (editorial team and production administrator for exhibition catalogue and LP album, 2020). Asha Iman earned her BA at New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study, focusing on contemporary literary practices, nonfiction narrative, and creative examples that deepen the understanding of contemporary multiculturalism. She earned her MFA in creative writing at The New School (NY), where she completed her literary nonfiction thesis Brooklyn (the Black), which she later published in 2015. She earned her MA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her thesis, “The Tokyo Show: Black & Brown Are Beautiful,” presented research on: Tokyo-based arts ecologies and possible site-partners for an independent exhibition (field study, 2014 and 2016); the identification and analysis of curatorial models based on historic exhibitions and contemporary projects; a visual critical review of global arts depictions of Black America c.1960s; and interviews with historic American artists including sculptor Richard Hunt, Warhol actress Abigail Rosen McGrath, and with Louise Greaves, the partner of late filmmaker William Greaves. Veal began her arts career as campaign staff and a festival producer for playwright Eve Ensler’s V-Day global movement to end violence against women and girls (New York). In 2012, she founded and directed The Places We’ve Been books publishing project and public humanities series. Her previous professional roles also include: editor-in-chief for the multilingual emerge: Journal of Arts Administration and Policy; artistic director and curator for RAISIN (vol. 1); and staff roles at Hyde Park Art Center, Sullivan Galleries, Molloy Art (SoHo NYC), and others. She has been a guest curator at the MSU Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, the Hyde Park Art Center, Sullivan Galleries SAIC, Chicago Artist Coalition, and LATITUDE Chicago. Asha Iman has worked on projects and/or arts research in Chicago, New York, Brazil, Darby UK, London, Tokyo, Berlin, Edinburgh, Havana, Vietnam, Juárez MX, and more. |
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