2024 Emerging Curator Program

Mentoring Curator: Mehveş Lelic 

Mehves is an Istanbul-born artist, curator and educator based on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. In her work she ponders modernity and heritage, belonging, and the resulting relationship with the environment. She is an Assistant Professor of Art and Art History and the Director of Mosely Gallery at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. She holds an MFA from Bard College and a BA from the University of Chicago.

Lelic’s photographic work has been exhibited internationally in venues such as the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Rotterdam Photo Festival, PhotoNOLA, Filter Photo Chicago, the Ogden Museum, Institute of Contemporary Art Baltimore, Cosmos Arles France, the Photographers’ Gallery Istanbul, and others. Her work has been published in the National Geographic, GEO Magazine, Ain’t Bad, Lenscratch, C41, Aesthetica and Der Greif. She has been awarded the National Geographic Expeditions Council Grant, the City of Chicago Individual Artists’ Award, the Turkish Cultural Foundation Cultural Exchange Fellowship, the Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC) Conference Fellowship, and the ArtTable Faith Flanagan Fellowship.

Lelic previously served as Curator and the Head of the Curatorial Department at the Academy Art Museum in Easton, Maryland and has curated and organized over 20 exhibitions, including Spatial Reckoning: Morandi, Picasso, and Villon (2023); Laura Letinsky: No More Than It Should Be (2023); Marty Two Bulls, Jr.: Dominion (2023); In Praise of Shadows: Jun’ichiro Tanizaki and Modern and Contemporary Works (2023); Mary Cassatt: Labor and Leisure (2023); Fickle Mirror: Dialogues in Self-Portraiture (2022); Jackie Milad: Vestige (2022); Norma Morgan: Enchanted World (2022); The Movable Image: Video Art by Collis/Donadio, Shala Miller, and Rachel Schmidt (2022); Hoesy Corona: Terrestrial Caravan (2022); and On Water (2019).

Emerging Curator: Jordan Horton

Jordan Horton is a curator and scholar from Newark, New Jersey, whose scholarship largely focuses on the internet as a geographical space, with a special interest in sonic and visual aesthetics, virtual subculture, and the translation of internet-based communication systems into everyday life. Jordan completed a BA in Art History from DePauw University in 2019 and an MA in Art History from Williams College/ Clark Art Institute in 2023. They previously served as a Mellon Curatorial Fellow at the Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA). At WCMA, they assisted with exhibitions such as Sweaty Concepts (2021) and Remixing the Hall (ongoing). They have also worked with living artists for shows such as Frantz Zéphirin: Selected Works (2022), Beatriz Cortez: The Portals (2023), and Mirrored Interiors: Films by Cecilia Aldarondo (2023). Jordan’s curatorial practice is centered around community and accessibility. They recently curated the exhibition Pick Me Up, Put Me On at the Bronx River Art Center. They believe curation is an act of care for art, artists, and all who encounter it. For this reason, they believe additional exhibition programming and various forms of interpretation are critical for viewers to experience art to the fullest.

About the VisArts Emerging Curator Program: The VisArts Emerging Curator Program pairs an emerging curator with an experienced mentoring curator to produce new exhibitions and related programming. The program is generously funded by the Windgate Charitable Foundation.

Learn more about the VisArts Emerging Curator Program.