2023 Previewers
Paul Barrett. Paul Barrett currently serves as President of the Alabama Visual Arts Network, a statewide partner of the Alabama State Council on the Arts founded in 1968. Based in Birmingham, Alabama, he also works as an independent curator, organizing traveling exhibitions for artists including Sara Garden Armstrong, Beverly Buchanan, Thornton Dial, Charlie Lucas, Jerry Siegel, and Yvonne Wells. An avid art collector for more than 35-years, Barrett works to build capacity with small- and medium-sized organizations and promote emerging artists.
Paul Barrett serves on all three 2023 Southern Prize and State Fellowships juror panels.
Emily Edwards. Emily Edwards is the Assistant Curator at Dallas Contemporary. While there, she has curated solo exhibitions of artists Eduardo Sarabia, Gabrielle Goliath, Natalie Wadlington, Shilpa Gupta, Ariel Rene Jackson, and Margarita Cabrera and assisted over thirty exhibitions. She is currently working on presentations of artists Bianca Bondi and Chloe Chiasson in 2023. Prior to Dallas, she worked at the 9/11 Memorial Museum. Her research interests include memorialization, diasporic art, and sociopolitical commentary. She graduated with a BFA with Honors in Art History from the University of Texas at Austin and an MA in Art History and Museum Studies from Georgetown University.
Emily Edwards serves on two 2023 Southern Prize and State Fellowships juror panels.
Lauren Harris. Lauren Harris is a fine arts professional, independent curator, and creative director from Atlanta, GA, currently working as the Director of Art Sales for Savannah College of Art and Design. After earning her BFA in Graphic Design and Art History from Howard University, Lauren quickly immersed herself in New York City’s gallery world and, subsequently, the growing arts scene in Washington, DC.
With an MA in Creative Business Leadership from SCAD, she uses her innovative strategies and progressive ideas to help ignite the arts community and create new avenues for artists. Lauren has worked as the Gallery Manager and Curator of ZuCot Gallery, a black-owned fine art gallery exhibiting the works of notable Black artists. Most recently had the opportunity to work with the Atlanta University Center Art History + Curatorial Studies Collective, a program that prepares undergraduates for careers in the visual arts.
In 2019, she co-founded Black Women in Visual Art, an organization working to connect, cultivate, and serve Black women arts professionals. With BWVA, Lauren builds partnerships and develops programs that create further visibility and opportunity for Black women in the artworld. As an independent arts worker over the last ten years, Harris has curated exhibitions and produced art experiences with organizations and art spaces such as For Freedoms, Facebook, MINT Gallery, Day & Night Gallery, The Gathering Spot, Stay Home Gallery, Living Walls, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center and more. Harris also serves as the Co-Chair for the Beltline Public Art Advisory Council, as a Board member for Tessera Arts Collective and is an active arts advocate consulting with artists on their practice and career-based opportunities.
2023 State Fellowships Juror Panel
Paul Barrett. Paul Barrett currently serves as President of the Alabama Visual Arts Network, a statewide partner of the Alabama State Council on the Arts founded in 1968. Based in Birmingham, Alabama, he also works as an independent curator, organizing traveling exhibitions for artists including Sara Garden Armstrong, Beverly Buchanan, Thornton Dial, Charlie Lucas, Jerry Siegel, and Yvonne Wells. An avid art collector for more than 35-years, Barrett works to build capacity with small- and medium-sized organizations and promote emerging artists.
Paul Barrett serves on all three 2023 Southern Prize and State Fellowships juror panels.
Emily Edwards. Emily Edwards is the Assistant Curator at Dallas Contemporary. While there, she has curated solo exhibitions of artists Eduardo Sarabia, Gabrielle Goliath, Natalie Wadlington, Shilpa Gupta, Ariel Rene Jackson, and Margarita Cabrera and assisted over thirty exhibitions. She is currently working on presentations of artists Bianca Bondi and Chloe Chiasson in 2023. Prior to Dallas, she worked at the 9/11 Memorial Museum. Her research interests include memorialization, diasporic art, and sociopolitical commentary. She graduated with a BFA with Honors in Art History from the University of Texas at Austin and an MA in Art History and Museum Studies from Georgetown University.
Emily Edwards serves on two 2023 Southern Prize and State Fellowships juror panels.
Negarra A. Kudumu. Negarra A. Kudumu is an interlocutrice working at the intersection of art and healing with a focus on contemporary art from the Pacific Northwest, Africa, South Asia, and their respective diasporas.
Negarra is a full time entrepreneur who splits her time between the art and healing worlds. In her art practice, she functions as a curator, writer, and public speaker. Negarra’s recent curatorial expertise includes the 2022 Neddy Award Exhibition, a group exhibition at the 2021 ARCO Madrid art fair for the Lisbon-based art gallery MOVART, and three exhibitions during her tenure as curator at the Center on Contemporary Art in Seattle (CoCA) featuring works by artists Selma Waldman, Meghan Elizabeth Trainor, and Rajaa Gharbi respectively. In 2017 and 2018, Negarra self-produced a series of online exhibitions featuring emerging and established artists based in the United States, Canada, and The Netherlands titled, Curatorial Lab.
Negarra’s writing has been published in notable volumes such as Atlantica: Contemporary Art From Angola and Its Diaspora (Hangar Books, 2018) and Recent Histories: Contemporary African Photography and Video Art From the Walther Collection (Steidl/The Walther Collection, 2017). She has also contributed essays to exhibition catalogs, gallery publications, and art world magazines in the United States and Canada.
Adeze Wilford. Adeze Wilford is Curator at MOCA, North Miami. She was an Assistant Curator at The Shed where she organized Howardena Pindell: Rope/Fire/Water. She was an inaugural joint curatorial fellow at The Studio Museum in Harlem and the Museum of Modern Art. She organized Vernacular Interior at Hales Gallery in 2019 as well as Excerpt (2017) at the Studio Museum and Black Intimacy (2017) a film series at MoMA. Other curatorial projects include Harlem Postcards F/W 2016/2017 and Color in Shadows the 2016 Expanding The Walls exhibition at Studio Museum. Prior to this Adeze was the Public Programs and Community Engagement assistant at the Studio Museum. She has contributed scholarship to various catalogues and magazines including Young, Gifted and Black and Black Refractions and serves on the Queens Museum Board. She graduated from Northwestern University with a BA in Art History and African-American Studies.
Mia Lopez. Mia Lopez is a curator, art historian, and writer. For over fifteen years she has worked with museums and nonprofit organizations on exhibitions, publications, and public programs focused on expanding the art historical canon. Her practice centers around contemporary art, with specializations in Latinx art, socially engaged artists, and identity politics. She has held curatorial positions at DePaul Art Museum and the Walker Art Center.
Mia completed dual Masters at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Modern and Contemporary Art History, Theory, and Criticism and Arts Administration and Policy; she also has a BA in Art History from Rice University. She has interned and worked at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Contemporary Art Museum Houston, the Contemporary at Blue Star, and the Museo Alameda in San Antonio. Mia is an alumnus of the Smithsonian Latino Museum Studies Program and an alumnus of the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures Leadership Institute. Her writing has appeared in publications by DePaul Art Museum, the Contemporary Art Museum Houston, the Walker Art Center, Prospect New Orleans, and Arte Publico Press.
2023 Southern Prize Juror Panel
Paul Barrett. Paul Barrett currently serves as President of the Alabama Visual Arts Network, a statewide partner of the Alabama State Council on the Arts founded in 1968. Based in Birmingham, Alabama, he also works as an independent curator, organizing traveling exhibitions for artists including Sara Garden Armstrong, Beverly Buchanan, Thornton Dial, Charlie Lucas, Jerry Siegel, and Yvonne Wells. An avid art collector for more than 35-years, Barrett works to build capacity with small- and medium-sized organizations and promote emerging artists.
Paul Barrett serves on all three 2023 Southern Prize and State Fellowships juror panels.
Leandra-Juliet Kelley. Leandra-Juliet Kelley is a curator and art historian based in Charlotte, North Carolina. Originally from Dayton, Ohio, Leandra earned a BA in Ethnomusicology from Earlham College where her love of art and music resulted in a documentary on Cincinnati's electronic music scene. In 2014, Leandra earned an MA in Ethnomusicology at King's College London with her dissertation that integrated interviews and a photographic series of the local grime music scene.
While abroad, Leandra traveled extensively throughout the UK and Europe, residing in Rome, Italy for a time. Upon returning to the U.S., she lived in Cincinnati, Ohio, working for the Cincinnati Art Museum, Taft Museum of Art, and Contemporary Arts Center before relocating to Charlotte, North Carolina in 2016. While in Charlotte, Leandra worked at the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art for over three years before returning to the UK in 2019 to earn a MSc degree in the History of Art (Theory & Display) from the University of Edinburgh. She currently resides in Charlotte, North Carolina where she works as the Collections + Exhibitions Manager at the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture.
Michael Rooks. Michael Rooks joined the High Museum as Wieland Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art in January 2010. Besides his responsibilities at the High, Rooks was appointed Commissioner and co-curator of the U.S. Pavilion at the 12th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia in 2010 and was a committee member of ActArt, President Obama’s initiative bridging contemporary art and social action.
Since joining the High Museum, Rook has developed or managed more than forty exhibitions, ranging in scope from artist projects to retrospectives including: Monir Farmanfarmaian: A Mirror Garden; What Is Left Unspoken, Love; With Drawn Arms: Glenn Kaino and Tommie Smith; Al Taylor, What Are You Looking At?; Imagining New Worlds: José Parlá and Fahamu Pecou; Alex Katz: This Is Now; KAWS: DOWN TIME; two historical survey exhibitions in partnership with MoMA entitled Picasso to Warhol: 14 Modern Masters and Fast Forward: Modern Moments 1913-2013; and Workshopping: An American Model of Architectural Practice.
Rooks has grown the museum’s collection of contemporary art by more than twenty-five percent with transformational acquisitions by artists such as Salman Toor, Amoako Boafo, Monir Farmanfarmaian, Teresita Fernandez, Arthur Jafa, Rashid Johnson, Anish Kapoor, Julie Mehretu, Shirin Neshat, Alex Katz, Sarah Sze, and Kara Walker, among others, advancing the museum’s mission and reputation as one of the foremost public collections of contemporary art in the southeast.