Yulia Topchiy
Yulia is dedicated to building a community of strong independent women curators through professional collaboration, sharing opportunities, and providing curatorial support. Originally from Russia, she spent the past sixteen years working for commercial galleries, auction houses, art fairs, and not-for-profits in New York City. As the founder of CoWorker Projects, she specialized in curating projects and exhibitions of video and film art with emerging and established artists. Until recently Yulia served as a Senior Gallery Relations Manager at ARTSY, where she specialized in online sales, global promotion, and exposure through online strategies. She also played an important role in several Artsy Projects initiatives where, along with Elena Soboleva, she created commissions, performances and site-specific installations. An ardent curator, advisor, and art collector, Yulia is one of the co-founders of ASSEMBLY ROOM.
Natasha Becker
Natasha was born in South Africa and has spent the last sixteen years living and working between Cape Town and New York. An expert in contemporary African and African American art, she has curated a number of exhibitions in collaboration with artists, curators, collectors, galleries, museums, and foundations in South Africa and the United States. She recently co-curated two exhibitions, “Perilous Bodies,” and “Radical Love,” at the distinguished Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice to inaugurate their new art gallery in New York (2019). Her past experience includes curating exhibitions at the Goodman Gallery (South Africa), organizing public programs in global art history at the Clark Art Institute, and launching an international video art festival (both Massachusetts, USA). Natasha is an independent curator and one of the co-founders of ASSEMBLY ROOM.
Paola Gallio
Paola is an Italian immigrant and independent curator in New York. Her mission is to nurture young and under-represented artists, providing them with much needed resources and opportunities for their long-term success. She has collaborated with public institutions and non-profit art organizations, including No Longer Empty, Soloway Gallery, Carriage Trade in New York; Marsèlleria Permanent Exhibition, Spazio Morris, FDV, Lambretto Art Project in Milan; Micamoca the Berlin Biennale, BB6 (2010); and Mariano Pichler Collection. In her previous life in Milan, she served as the Director of the non-profit space Neon>fdv, and co-curator of Short Show and Short Visit projects. She is the advising curator for Boccanera Gallery, based in Trento and Milan, and a passionate writer who regularly contributes to various magazines and publishers. Paola is one of the co-founders of ASSEMBLY ROOM.
Jane Cavalier
Jane is a Curatorial Assistant at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Working in the Department of Drawings and Prints, she was recently on the curatorial team for the exhibition, Making Space: Women Artists and Postwar Abstraction (2017). She also independently curates shows, including Object Intimacies at NURTUREart, Brooklyn (2018-2019); Re: Framed at the Re: Art Show, Brooklyn (2018); and Modern Melancholy at the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College (2013). Jane received a master’s in art history from The Courtauld Institute in July 2016, and was a 2014–2015 Fulbright Research Scholar in Berlin. Currently based in Brooklyn, New York, her writing has been published by The L.A. Review of Books; The Art Newspaper; The Brooklyn Rail; MOMUS; Hyperallergic; University of California, Los Angeles Graphite Interdisciplinary Journal of the Arts; and Northwestern University Art Review. // Jane co-curated Two Finger’s Make a Line, a solo show of Chang Yuchen’s work at the gallery.
Nicole Kaack
Nicole is an independent curator and writer based in Queens, NY. She is the current Curatorial Fellow at The Kitchen, New York, as well as Assistant Director at the Photo Collections Preservation Project (PCPP). Kaack has been published by Whitehot Magazine, artcritical, Art Viewer, SFAQ / NYAQ / AQ, Artforum, and The Brooklyn Rail. She has also contributed texts to I will set a stage for you, published by HOLOHOLO Books and edited by Ana Iwataki and Marion Vasseur Raluy, as well as to a publication in association with Hauser & Wirth’s Recto / Verso panel series. Exhibitions include It All Trembles at the NARS Foundation, Brooklyn (upcoming May 2019), Object Intimacies at NURTUREart, Brooklyn (2018-2019), Science Fictions at CRUSHCURATORIAL, New York (2018), Re:Framed at the Re: Art Show, Brooklyn (2018), Wordless at Small Editions, Brooklyn (2017), Enveloped at Small Editions, Brooklyn (2017), and Paperless at Small Editions, Brooklyn (2017). Kaack is the co-founder of the newsletter of missing out, co- director of the artist publication prompt, and co-founder of the press Blind Carbon. // Nicole co-curated Two Finger’s Make a Line, a solo show of Chang Yuchen’s work at the gallery.
Ksenia M. Soboleva
Ksenia is an independent curator, writer, and PhD Candidate at the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU. She holds a BA in Art History from Utrecht University and an MA from the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU. Soboleva’s dissertation focuses on lesbian artists and the AIDS crisis in New York, from 1981-1996. Her research interests include feminist and queer theory, the history of gender and sexuality, and performance studies. Soboleva has curated exhibitions at 80WSE Project Space, The Institute of Fine Arts, Honey’s, SPRING/BREAK Art Show, and Stellar Projects. She has taught at NYU and the Cooper Union, and presented her research at various conferences including CAA (New York City, 2019) and the Feminist Art History Conference (Washington, DC, 2018). In Fall 2019, Soboleva co-organized the Queering Art History symposium at the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU. Soboleva’s writings have appeared in Hyperallergic, art-agenda, and The Archive. // Ksenia curated a group show, Plays on Camp, featuring works by Leilah Babirye, Buzz Slutzky, and Nathan Storey Freeman.
Emily Burns
Emily is an artist and curator. She has curated group exhibitions at the Woskob Family Gallery (central PA), studio e gallery, and The Alice (Seattle). She is curating upcoming exhibitions at Unpaved Gallery (Yucca Valley, CA) Left Field Gallery (Los Osos, CA,) and Trestle Gallery (Brooklyn). She is the founding editor and curator of the contemporary art publication Maake Magazine, an independent print publication featuring the work of contemporary artists and artist-run projects. Maake has collaborated with 12 guest curators, published 8 issues, interviewed over 200 artists, and co-hosted public events and exhibitions across the country. Burns is also the founder and director of Maake Projects, a new exhibition space in central PA. As an artist, her work has been exhibited both internationally and throughout the United States, including a solo show at Adventureland Gallery (Chicago), three-person exhibition at 111 Minna Gallery (San Francisco), and group exhibitions at The Lodge Gallery and John Molloy Gallery (New York City), Transmitter, Trestle Gallery, and Tiger Strikes Asteroid (Brooklyn) 24-Hour Charlie’s (Los Angeles), and Galleri Urbane (Dallas). She is currently a faculty member at The Pennsylvania State University. // Emily curated Linger Still, a solo show of new work by Kaveri Raina at Assembly Room.
Angela Conant
Angela Conant is an artist, curator and educator in Brooklyn, NY. Her work in sculpture, painting and video abstracts bodily form and addresses the transformative effect that art and news media has on cultural perception. Conant’s work has been exhibited at Electronic Arts Intermix (New York City), EFA Project Space (New York City), Planthouse (New York City), SPRING/BREAK art show (New York City), Interstate Projects (Brooklyn, NY), the Delaware Center for Contemporary Art (Wilmington, DE), Neter (Mexico City, MX), The Sunview Luncheonette (Brooklyn, NY), ICA Baltimore (Baltimore, MD), La Mama Gallery (New York City), SARDINE (Brooklyn, NY), Galerie René Blouin (Montreal, QC) and Agency (Brooklyn, NY). She was a Critical Writing resident at Recess in 2013, an artist resident at the Millay Colony in 2014, and is a 2019 Home School Hudson participant. In 2007, she co-founded The Gowanus Studio Space where she served as Artistic Director until 2014. She earned a BFA in Painting from Boston University in 2004 and an MFA in Art Practice from School of Visual Arts in 2013. // Angela curated a group exhibition, MAD, at the gallery.
Vicki Sun
Vicki Sun is an independent curator whose research interests include systems of exchange and the groups of people who get left behind in these economic structures, strategies of survival from marginalized peoples, and the visual culture that emerges in response to a dominant culture. She holds a BA in Art History and Political Science from Northwestern University and an MA in Archaeology and Art History from Koç University. She curated her first exhibition, Commandments for Women, at Assembly Room in June 2019. // Vicki curated Commandments for Women, which showcased the work of Furen Dai in our sidewalk cellar space.
Banyi Huang
Banyi Huang (born in Beijing) is an independent curator, writer, and 3D designer based in New York. Graduating from Columbia’s MODA program studying art history and curatorial thought, she is interested in exploring the masked aspects of gender, labor, and history behind digital media and technological production, as well as decolonizing discourses and Asian diaspora identity. She has realized curatorial projects at PRACTICE Yonkers, Assembly Room, BRIC, and Center for Performance Research and has completed curatorial internships at the Guggenheim Museum and Whitney Museum. She is a regular contributor to the Brooklyn Rail, Hyperallergic, ArtAsiaPacific, Artforum China, OCULA magazine, among others. // Banyi curated Organon, a solo show of Anh Thuy Nguyen’s work at Assembly Room.
Emily Alesandrini
Emily Alesandrini is a writer, curator, advocate, and culture enthusiast living and working in New York. Her research concerns contemporary representations of race and gender with a particular focus on issues of displacement, marginalization, and the body in art by women and artists of color. She has contributed to exhibition planning and publications at Wave Hill, The Studio Museum in Harlem, The Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans, and The Art Institute of Chicago. Her writing has been featured in A Women’s Thing and Independent Curators International publications. Alesandrini graduated from Smith College with Latin Honors and a BA in Art History. As a fully funded Elizabeth Allison Emory Scholar, she earned her MA in Modern and Contemporary Art History from Tulane University. She looks forward to furthering her studies as a doctoral graduate student and continuing her pursuit of generative collaborations in contemporary art. // Emily curated a group show, Implied Body, featuring works by Yan Cynthia Chen, Beatrice Modisett, Tariku, Shiferaw & Kennedy Yanko at Assembly Room.
Nina Mdivani
Nina Mdivani is an independent curator and arts writer. Born in Tbilisi, Georgia in 1982, she lives and works in New York. She has studied International Relations and Creative Writing at Mount Holyoke College and New York University. Her book, King is Female, published in October 2018 in Berlin by Wienand Verlag and launched at the Frankfurt Book Fair, explores the lives of three Georgian women artists and is the first book investigating questions of the feminine artistic identity in the context of the Eastern European historical, social, and cultural transformation of the last twenty years. She has curated several exhibitions in Georgia and Europe, all related to her interest in visual dialogue between cultures and women’s role in it. Her articles have been featured at Hyperallergic and Heinrich Boell Foundation websites. Nina was selected as 2019-2020 Curator-in-Residence at Kunstraum, Brooklyn. She continuously writes for her blog: ninamdivani.com // Nina curated New York Meets Tbilisi: Defining Otherness – Part I at the gallery.