Curator in Residency

About

This residency program will support a youth curator with the opportunity to plan a 3 month exhibition at Sovern LA from conception to execution with mentorship from Essence Harden, the prominent curator, arts writer, and academic, known most recently for their curation work for EXPO Chicago, the Focus section for Frieze LA, and the Hammer Museum’s biennial “Made in LA”. The resident will receive the unique opportunity of being stewarded into the Los Angeles arts landscape by a seasoned, community-rooted, experimental and esteemed curator while being platformed by Sovern. The resident will receive a $2500 stipend and a separate budget for exhibiting artist fees. The exhibition will run March - May 2027.  

The resident will be supported in developing their curatorial voice, learning practices to ground how their work contributes to ongoing cultural conversations, and to explore curation as a cultural and political practice. The resident will be encouraged to experiment and develop skills around artist-centered collaboration as they are supported through the logistics of exhibition planning, including installation and related program development. Alongside real-life curatorial experience and mentorship, the resident will have the opportunity to discuss professional sustainability and how to navigate arts institutions in a way that maintains integrity within an often extractive system.

Eligibility and Guidelines

The residency is open to BIPOC youth who are between the ages of 18 and 25, who are based in L.A. County. Applicants will be asked to present a 100-200 word exhibition proposal along with 3-5 artists they are interested in working with. Works can include painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, mixed media and interdisciplinary work with gallery constraints taken into consideration. Submissions will be juried by residency mentors and selection will be based on curatorial vision, conceptual strength, and feasibility.

Kristin Juarez, PhD, is the manager of collections at the California African American Museum (CAAM), where she leads the stewardship, exhibition, and research of the Museum’s collection of visual art, history, and library collections. Her scholarship engages multidisciplinary experimentation at the intersection of visual art, performance, and the moving image. Juarez’s curated exhibitions include Blondell Cummings: Dance as Moving Pictures, Art + Practice (2021), How to be a Guerrilla Girl, Getty Research Institute (2025-2026), and The Black Interior: Imagining Home in CAAM’s Permanent Collection, CAAM (2025-2026). Her recent writing can be found in the accompanying volume for the Maren Hassinger retrospective Living, Moving, Growing (2026), and she is currently working on a collaborative research project on artist, scholar, and curator Samella Lewis.