Emerging Curator Program
The 2027 Emerging Curator call for proposals will open on March 24, 2026 via Submittable. LACE hosted an information session on the application Wednesday, March 11 at 1PM PST. If you missed it, you can find the recording below.
The Emerging Curator Program is designed to discover curatorial talent in Los Angeles and provides opportunities for emerging curators to partner with LACE. For the program’s 12th installment, one project will be selected for presentation in 2027.
Each year, LACE accepts proposals for an ambitious and experimental curatorial project that may include an exhibition, performance, or moving image series. Exact format and scheduling to be coordinated in collaboration with the LACE team.
This year, we are accepting curatorial proposals centered on performance art works that can be presented as a single program, or programming series, rather than an exhibition.
Submissions are expected to be open in nature because of the generous planning time allotted. The LACE team works with the selected Emerging Curator/Curatorial Team in developing the project and collaborating on programming as it evolves over the planning year. Projects are designed with a $6,000 budget in mind, including curatorial and artist fees. LACE provides mentorship, space, project consultation, presentation assistance, and marketing and promotion.
Who can apply
Open to Los Angeles-based emerging curators and recent graduates interested in developing their curatorial practice within and with the support of a nonprofit arts organization.
Note: this call is specifically for curators and not artists submitting proposals of their own work. Curators should not be currently enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate program.
How to apply
Please submit an application through the Submittable portal after creating an account. Applicants must include the following items in their application:
- Brief professional biography (200 words max)
- Proposed project title
- Curatorial Proposal (300 words max)
- Work samples (images, video, links, etc.)
General Guidelines
- Applications may be submitted by an individual or curatorial team and all applicants/members 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 strongly encouraged; include PDFs or web links, showcasing previous curatorial projects or exhibition-making practice, and work samples of artists in the proposal. Video samples should be no longer than 5 mins in length total, with a maximum of 2 video samples per proposal.
- Artists/artworks do not have to be confirmed at the time of the application.
- The panel may request the submission of additional materials at a later date.
- Curators with artistic practices should not submit their own work.
LACE provides
- Curatorial mentorship and administrative support
- Communications and marketing support
- Project budget of $6,000
- Exhibition/programming space
- Technical and installation support
The deadline to submit project proposals is Friday, April 24, 2026. For any questions or concerns about the application process or about the Emerging Curator Program, contact us at submissions@welcometolace.org
Review Panelists
Dr. Meiling Cheng is Professor of Dramatic Arts in Critical Studies and Professor of Art and Design at the University of Southern California. She is the author of In Other Los Angeleses: Multicentric Performance Art and Beijing Xingwei: Contemporary Chinese Time-Based Art, for which she received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Zumberge Research Award, and a Phi Kappa Phi Faculty Recognition Award. She coedited the critical anthology, Reading Contemporary Performance: Theatricality Across Genres. Cheng takes the theory of multicentricity as her conceptual starting point and performative writing as her creative medium to practice intermedial critical art.
Andrea Gyorody is a curator, writer, and cultural strategist whose work explores abstraction, politics, religion, and cultural memory in modern and contemporary art. She has held curatorial positions at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College, and most recently served as director of the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art at Pepperdine University. Major curatorial projects include Joseph Beuys: In Defense of Nature (2024–25, The Broad, co-curated with Sarah Loyer); Forms Larger and Bolder: Eva Hesse Drawings (2019–22, co-curated with Barry Rosen); and Afterlives of the Black Atlantic (2019–20, AMAM, co-curated with Matthew Francis Rarey), which received an Association of Art Museum Curators Award for Curatorial Excellence. She has also curated solo exhibitions of Makoto Fujimura, Karl Haendel, Cameron Harvey, Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson, Jeni Spota C., and Isabel Yellin. She is a frequent contributor to Artforum and her writing has also appeared in Hyperallergic, ARTnews, Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles, and numerous exhibition catalogues. She holds a PhD in Art History from UCLA.
Anna Luisa Petrisko is an interdisciplinary artist, healer, and teacher working across video art, experimental opera, performance, sound, publishing, and social practice. Her work investigates the body as a site of paradox—transcendent of time and form. She creates immersive spaces for gathering and connection. Recent projects include the experimental opera All Time Stop Now, which premiered at REDCAT. Through her many projects, Anna Luisa cultivates accessible, intergenerational spaces for slowness, deep feeling, and creative inquiry, and her studio functions as a sanctuary for collaboration and embodied exploration.
INFO SESSION RECORDING
Past Emerging Curators
Semaj Peltier and pom*pom, No Loneliness Like This (2026)
Nahui Garcia, This Home, Forever (2025)
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)
Nahui Garcia, This Home, Forever (2025)
