PAST GUEST CURATOR INSTALLATIONS

Guest Curator Edition – 03: Olivia Ross

Sept. 2023 - Jan. 2024

The years between 1970 – 2000 were transformative for women guitarists. Previously seen as a primarily masculine instrument, the rise of women guitarists during this period would forever change the way the instrument was perceived in popular culture.

This pop-up exhibition focused on seven groundbreaking women, highlighting the instruments, costumes, and records these phenomenal artists contributed to late 20th-century music and their lasting impact on the art and culture of today.

ABOUT THE CURATOR

Olivia Ross is a graduate student in the Master of Arts in Museology program at the University of Washington. After completing her bachelor’s in art history at Florida State University, where she helped curate the exhibition The Shape of Care, Olivia served as the Curatorial Assistant Intern at the Museum of Northwest Art in La Conner, Washington. Her previous internships include London’s Old Operating Theatre Museum & Herb Garett and Dallas Heritage Village in Dallas, Texas. Olivia has played guitar for over ten years and was drawn to create an exhibition honoring the women guitarists who inspired her along the way.

Guest Curator Edition – 02: Adeerya Johnson

April - September 2023

The selection of artifacts previously on display provided a historical and nuanced portrayal of how Black women tell their stories, express their style, show off their lyrical skill and sexuality, as they navigate Black womanhood, and name their artistry as founders of Hip-Hop music and culture.

The pop-up exhibition contained a chronological history of how Black women shape their image, sound, and fashion, while navigating sexist challenges posed by societal norms and expectations that exist in Hip-Hop culture.

ABOUT THE CURATOR

Adeerya Johnson is MoPOP’s Associate Curator and Hip-Hop feminist scholar from Atlanta, Georgia. Her scholarly work, which she refers to as "Dirty South Feminism," gives modern insights on Black women's identity, Hip-Hop dance, and contemporary representations of Black womanhood within Southern Hip-Hop cultures through a Hip-Hop Feminist lens.

PREVIOUSLY ON DISPLAY

Girl Germs

Riot Grrrl and Punk Politics in the Pandemic

Guest Curator Edition – 01: Hank Cooper

June 2022 - January 2023

In the early 1990s, alternative rock flooded the airwaves and grunge saturated the Pacific Northwest. The underground rock scene was male dominated and often misogynistic. Meanwhile, femme frustration took shape in art galleries, home-made publications, and punk rock music. Somewhere between Olympia, Washington and Washington, D.C., the riot grrrl movement supervened and scrappy ingénues scream-sang the girl personal and political. Today’s riot grrrl’s manifesto has evolved, at a time in which our lives revolve around a virus, unjust reproductive rights, and transgender kids’ safety is compromised.

ABOUT THE CURATOR

Hank Cooper is a Two-Spirit citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. They are an alumx of Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, KS, and a graduate of the University of Washington’s (UW) Museology Master’s program. Hank moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico last year to assume the role of Curatorial Assistant at the Institute of American Indian Art’s Museum of Contemporary Native Art (MoCNA). Prior to their move, Hank served as the Arts Program Manager/Visual Arts Curator for the Sacred Circle Gallery at the Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center in Magnolia’s Discovery Park. Hank was also a Curatorial Fellow at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA, and worked as an Exhibitions Assistant at the Henry Art Gallery on UW’s campus.  In their current role at MoCNA, Hank focuses on emerging Indigenous artists and the ways their art communicates social issues across Indian country.