Tie Jojima is Curator of Global Contemporary Art at The Phillips Collection. Her curatorial practice largely focuses on contemporary art and its dialogues with queer, decolonial, and diasporic issues. Born and raised in São Paulo, Brazil, Jojima completed her PhD at the Graduate Center, CUNY, where her research focused largely on postwar and contemporary Latin American art. Jojima has previously worked as an Associate Curator at Americas Society in New York, where she co-curated critically acclaimed exhibitions, including The Appearance: Art of the Asian Diaspora in Latin American & the Caribbean (2024), El Dorado: Myths of Gold (2023-2024), and Geles Cabrera: Museo Escultórico (2022), among others. She has published academic and curatorial texts for Vistas: Critical Approaches to Latin American Art (ISLAA), Arte & Ensaios, Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP), and El Museo del Barrio, among others.
Tsedaye Makonnen is an award-winning interdisciplinary artist, daughter of Ethiopian immigrants, a mother, and a birthworker whose practice centers Black feminist theory, migration, and reproductive rights. She has performed at The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Africa and Byzantium at the Venice Biennale for Simone Leigh’s Loophole of Retreat. Her light sculptures are on view at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art and The Walters Art Museum. She was a Clark Art Institute fellow twice and also a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow. Makkonen co-curated the contemporary works for the traveling exhibition Ethiopia at the Crossroads, which documents oral histories of Ethiopian communities in DC with support from the Library of Congress. Makkonen is currently a visiting artist with Williams College Museum of Art, Williams ‘62 Center of Theater & Dance, and The Clark. Her roster includes Studio Museum in Harlem, Bard Graduate Center, Albuquerque Museum, Peabody Essex Museum, and Toledo Museum of Art. She lives between DC and London.
Leila Grothe is Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at The Baltimore Museum of Art. At the BMA, she recently curated Preoccupied: Indigenizing the Museum (2024-2025)—a large-scale initiative comprised of nine exhibitions, institutional interventions, and a publication all geared toward centering Indigenous voices. Other recent projects include solo exhibition with Raúl de Nieves, Martha Jackson Jarvis, william cordova, Stephanie Syjuco, Frieda Toranzo Jaeger, and numerous collection and group exhibitions. She has also taught in the Curatorial Practice graduate program at the Maryland Institute College of Art.
Jordan Martin is a curator, collaborator, and creative producer. She is the Curatorial Production Manager at the Washington Project for the Arts (WPA). In this role, she has pioneered models that empower artists as co-creators of cultural programming, ensuring that projects reflect and serve diverse communities. Jordan is also the Project Manager for Art Department Inc., a creative studio specializing in community-focused public art and art consultation. She is also the co-founder and contributing editor of DIRT, an independent platform for accessible critical arts discourse within the DC, Maryland, Virginia (DMV) region. Jordan has partnered with institutions like DC Public Library, the Corcoran School of Art and Design at GW, and Eaton Workshop to amplify local narratives. A fourth-generation Washingtonian, she possesses a deep understanding of DC’s cultural fabric.
