The School of Art Gallery Visiting Curator Program invites established and emerging guest curators to propose, develop, research, and present ambitious exhibitions, publications, and outreach programming.
Grace Deveney is mentoring Shalaka Jadhav and Lillian O’Brien Davis as part of the Visiting Curator Program.
Grace Deveney is a curator and art historian who holds a PhD in Art History from Northwestern University. She is the David C. and Sarajean Ruttenberg Associate Curator of Photography and Media at the Art Institute of Chicago. Previously, she was Associate Curator of the fifth iteration of Prospect, a New Orleans-based contemporary art triennial, titled Prospect.5: Yesterday we said tomorrow (2021) and Assistant Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Exhibitions at the MCA include a mid-career survey of the work of painter Christina Quarles (2021), Direct Message: Art, Language, and Power (2019) and Groundings (2018; with Tara Aisha Willis), and presentations of the work of Paul Pfeiffer and Amanda Williams (both 2017).
Shalaka Jadhav spent their childhood between cities in India and in Dubai, before moving to a neighbourhood spitting distance from Ontario’s largest mall. They are currently hosted on Treaty 1, entangling a long time curiosity about art-based methods, and their role in enabling unusual connections and collective futures. In their day job, Shalaka designs and facilitates curriculum and workshops that support young people in moving towards just, climate-resilient futures. Trained as an urban planner, Shalaka is following the advice of an aptitude test to pursue Curatorial Practices at the University of Winnipeg. As Shalaka explores and builds on their curatorial ethic, they see it to be guided by a walking methodology, carrying forward the work of their ancestors in tending for the land, and woven together by conversations over cups of tea. In 2021, Shalaka is the Curator-in-Residence at the Centre for Art Tapes.
Lillian O’Brien Davis is a curator and writer currently based in Toronto, ON. She is the Curator of Exhibitions and Public Programs at Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography. She has curated projects at Art Museum at the University of Toronto, Susan Hobbs Gallery, the MacKenzie Art Gallery, and the School of Art Gallery at the University of Manitoba. Her writing has appeared in BlackFlash magazine, Canadian Art online, C magazine, the Brooklyn Rail, Peripheral Review and Insight Magazine.