Emerging Curator Program

This year, the program is accepting curatorial proposals centered on performance that can be presented as a single program or programming series. Emerging curators are encouraged to propose projects that can be presented in a gallery space or theater over no more than four days/evenings. Exact format and scheduling to be coordinated in collaboration with the LACE team.

Note: this call is specifically for curators and not artists submitting proposals of their own work.

Submissions are expected to be open in nature because of the generous planning time allotted. The LACE team will work with the selected Emerging Curator/Curatorial Team in developing the project as it evolves over the planning year, and will collaborate on programming to ensure the work reaches its intended audiences. The project must be designed with a $6,000 budget in mind, including curatorial and artist fees. LACE will provide space, project consultation, presentation assistance, and marketing and promotion.

Guidelines for Curatorial Proposals

Applications may be submitted by an individual or curatorial team and must be based in the Los Angeles region. 

• Online applications only; no in-person submissions are accepted.
• Applicants are limited to one submission; there is no submission fee.
• Submissions must be consistent with LACE’s tradition of supporting experimental projects.
• Visuals are optional but encouraged; include PDFs or web links. Video samples should be no longer than 5 mins in length total, with a maximum of 2 video samples per proposal. 
• Proposal descriptions are limited to a maximum of 300 words
• The panel may request the submission of additional materials at a later date.
• Curators with artistic practices should not submit their own work.

Applications for the 2025 Emerging Curator Program will open via Submittable on Tuesday, March 19, 2024. The deadline to submit project proposals is Friday, April 19, 2024. For any questions or concerns about the application process or about the Emerging Curator Program, contact us at submissions@welcometolace.org

Jackie Amézquita (b.1985) was born in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, and migrated to the United States in 2003. Amézquita’s multidisciplinary practice grows out of a family history of diaspora, personal experiences as a formerly-undocumented immigrant in the US, and the unweaving of our shared social memory. Sourcing natural materials from significant historical migration sites and drawing from indigenous mythologies, Amézquita holds space for communal grieving and human connection; giving birth to new modes of resistance and challenging systematic oppression, marginalization, and exploitation.

Amézquita holds an AA in Visual Communications from LAVC, a BFA from ArtCenter College of Design, and a MFA from UCLA. Amézquita has exhibited with the Hammer Museum, LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions), LAND (Los Angeles Nomadic Division), 18th Street Arts Center, Armory Center for the Arts, Vincent Price Art Museum, Annenberg Space for Photography, Human Resources, Los Angeles, and MAD (Museum of Art and Design), among others. She is the recipient of the Mohn Land Award (2023), Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts, Angeles Art Fund (2022), and National Performance Network Fund (2022). Amézquita  has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, hyperallergic, Walker Art Center magazine,  and many other publications. She currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California. The unceded land of the Tongva  people.

Alex Sloane is an Associate Curator at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) where she focuses on expanding the scope of performance at the museum. Recent exhibitions include Simone Forti (2023); the LA presentation of Carl Craig: Party After Party (2023); and the LA presentation of the opera-performance Sun & Sea by Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė, Vaiva Grainytė, and Lina Lapelytė (2021). Alongside exhibitions, Alex organizes MOCA’s principle performance series, Wonmi’s WAREHOUSE Programs. The 2023 season included presentations of Ligia Lewis, A Plot/A Scandal; Carl Craig Party/After-Party Sessions; KINK OUT: EPHEMERA; and Moriah Evans’ Remains Persist among others. Prior to joining MOCA in 2021 Alex was the Assistant Curator at MoMA PS1 in New York City where she co-organized the performance series, Sunday Sessions, with an emphasis on commissioning new work and establishing a residency series.

Julie Tolentino (she/they interchangeably) is a Filipina-Salvadorean artist whose performance/installation practice explores the interstitial spaces of race, gender, relationality, and the archive. Expanding notions of durational, erotic practices, site, and movement, their collaborative projects include performance, installation, video, devised objects, scent, soundscapes, and texts drawn from essential outside learning spaces of activism, alterity, advocacy, loss, and caregiving. Tolentino received an MFA as the Dean’s Distinguished Fellow at the University of California at Riverside’s in Experimental Choreography (2020). They initiated and ran the Clit Club from 1990-2002, Tattooed Love Child, and Dagger in New York City, was part of House of Color Video Collective, Art Positive, and WWHIVDD Collective. Since 2012, Tolentino has been the editor for the Provocations section of The Drama Review (TDR). Appointments include the 2021-2022 Scholar-in-Residence at NYU Steinhardt; the Alma Hawkins Chair in the World Arts & Cultures Department at UCLA, Winter 2022, and is both a current and future Queer|Art Mentor – 2022-2024. Tolentino joined CalArts as permanent faculty in Fall 2022. Tolentino is an artist/maker/contributor with Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles.

Past Emerging Curators

Carrie Chen, A Fossil, A Ruin, A Memory (2024)
Joy A. Anderson and Robin Garcia, Of Seed, Soil, and Stars (2023)
Cat Jones, Reclaiming Performance: Reverence of Self (2022)
Kevin Moultrie-Daye and Alex Jones, PARABLE 003 (2021)
Abigail Raphael Collins, SOUND OFF: Silence + Resistance (2020)
Narei Choi and Nicolas Orozco-Valdivia, Take my Money / Take My Body (2019)
Emily Butts, Names Printed in Black (2018)
Virginia Broersma, Nick Brown, and Kio Griffith, The Ecstasy of Mary Shelley (2017)
Idurre Alonso and Selene Preciado, Customizing Language (2016)