After receiving many incredible proposals for the Emily Hall Tremaine Journalism Fellowship for Curators, we’re proud to announce this year’s cohort of fellows: Tiffany D. Gaines, Machiko Harada, Brianna L. Hernández, Álvaro Ibarra, and Brian Johnson.
These five curators are collaborating with our editorial team to demystify the behind-the-scenes aspects of their curatorial practices and share insights into their processes. Each will publish two articles on Hyperallergic, produce an online exhibition, and discuss their work in a virtual event open to readers.
Stay tuned for updates, and read more about the fellows below:
Tiffany D. Gaines
Tiffany D. Gaines is a curator, writer, photographer, and multimedia creator born in Brooklyn and based in Buffalo, New York. Her curatorial practice is grounded in highlighting the diverse arts and artists of her community and uncovering cultural histories that inspire agency, accessibility, and an appreciation of the power of art. As an artist, her curatorial research informs her photography, exploring themes of healing, narrative, community, history, and possibility. Currently, she is the curatorial associate at Buffalo’s Burchfield Penney Art Center.
Curatorial Project – From the City: Exploring the Continuum of Buffalo’s Black Arts Scene
To highlight the robust and underrecognized history of Black artistic production in Buffalo, New York, From the City will explore work by some of the region’s prominent Black artists alongside the stories of arts spaces that were cultivated to support creative expression, community, and access. Through curatorial research and photography, this project considers the cyclical nature of the city’s cultural legacy, and the necessary preservation of the histories that comprise its enduring, intergenerational Black arts scene.
Machiko Harada
Machiko Harada is a Japanese curator, writer, and cultural mediator based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She has curated exhibitions and projects in Japan and Europe and was the chief curator at the art residency Akiyoshidai International Art Village, where she devoted her time to working with artists in realizing their experimental projects, which at times involved engaging local communities. Currently, she is seeking to develop a curatorial methodology based on her lifelong learning of the tea-ceremony.
Curatorial Project – Re/imagine Peace
The project will examine what warfare means to us now by considering the ongoing consequences of World War II through the work of Japanese and Japanese-American contemporary artists. While the war ended 80 years ago, its impact is still deeply relevant to us today. The artworks in Re/imagine Peace are intended to provide us with an opportunity to reconsider the legacy of war.
Brianna L. Hernández
Brianna L. Hernández is a Chicana artist, curator, and death doula guided by socially engaged practices. In the studio, she creates multi-media installations focused on end-of-life care, grief, and mourning rituals based on lived experience, cultural research, and collaborations with peers including death education workshops. She is director of curation and board secretary of Ma’s House & BIPOC Art Studio on the Shinnecock Indian Reservation, assistant curator at the Parrish Art Museum, the board treasurer at Walker’s Point Center for the Arts, and a committee member for the Gente Chicana/SOYmos Chicanos Arts Fund.
Curatorial Project – Reclaiming Death | Art, Ritual, and Advocacy at the End-of-Life
Through historical and contemporary examples, Reclaiming Death will present artworks on end-of-life, grief, and mourning as invitations to mend Western relationships to death and dying. Key elements of Reclaiming Death will explore the legacy of art in funerary practices, the role of artists as deathcare workers, and contemporary revivals of traditional practices.
Álvaro Ibarra
Álvaro Ibarra’s curatorial projects and critical writing concern Mexican modernism and Latinx art. His scholarly writing and archaeological projects engage marginalia in ancient Rome. He also publishes on classical tradition/reception in film and videogames. He is an assistant professor of art history at Utah State University.
Curatorial Project – Artepaño: Rehabilitating Prison Art Viewership
This project aims to introduce readers to the artistic tradition of ink drawings on handkerchiefs executed by incarcerated Chicanos. Going further, in validating artepaño, the art world must abandon its fetishistic enthusiasm for prison art. Transforming the fetish object into an art object is the only way to bring justice to artists silenced by their legal status.
Brian Johnson
Brian Johnson, award-winning designer, partner at Polymode, and co-founder of BIPOC Design History, champions marginalized voices through his work. He delves into interdisciplinary approaches, using poetic research, impactful design, and immersive learning to amplify forgotten narratives. Johnson has lectured and conducted workshops at institutions like RISD and AIGA National Design Conferences, and curated an upcoming exhibition at Poster House in 2026 centered on Indigenous-created works.
Curatorial Project – Posters That Sing: Notes on Indigenous Print Design
Indigenous representation in poster history currently focuses on depictions and caricatures of Native culture that are used to brand and market products from baseball to butter, Fords to football; the noble savage is stereotyped, not worthy of sovereignty, culture, language. In opposition to this flattening lens Indigenous designers, fabricators, and printers have persevered — creating a legacy of vibrant, distinct, and exciting imagery that counters and subverts the dominant, colonial myth-narrative. In 2026, Posters That Sing will open at Poster House in New York, the first exhibition of Indigenous-made poster works to combat erasure and decolonize design.
Explore previous projects of the Emily Hall Tremaine Journalism Fellowship for Curators.
