Eva Mayhabal Davis, Independent Curator and Founder of Eva Mayha Projects 42:50
In this exciting episode, we talk with our Season 4 co-host, Eva Mayhabal Davis. She takes us from the University of Washington to her first job in NYC at the Guggenheim Museum where she learned to spend significant time with art and facilitate conversations. We talk about her three partners in curating: the space, the artist, and the audience; how collaboration comes naturally to her; and how art is a path toward empathy and understanding. Eva walks us through the origin and trajectory of El Salón, a monthly program where she brings people together for food, company, and feedback. She reveals her hosting personality, how she chooses artists to work with, and how her choices resonate with her personal history. Does she have a secret white board full of artist names? Is she done with her education? Does her day job feed her curatorial work? Did she call her mom in advance of this conversation? You must listen to find out.
Eva Mayhabal Davis has curated exhibitions at BronxArtSpace, En Foco, Expressiones Cultural Center, MECA International Art Fair, Photoville NY, Queens Museum, Smack Mellon, and Ray Gallery. She is currently a Co-Director at Transmitter, a collaborative curatorial initiative, and in 2020 she will be the Curator-in-Residence at Kunstraum LLC. Based in New York City, she works with artists and creatives on the production of exhibitions, texts, and events. Her personal immigrant narrative drives her work in advocacy to advance equity and social justice values through the arts and culture. Born in Mexico and raised in the United States, she studied art history at the University of Washington. She is a founding member of El Salón, a meetup for cultural producers based in NYC. She has spoken on her curatorial work at the AC Institute, Artist Space, Queens Museum, The 8th Floor, Brooklyn College, Queensborough Community College, and NYC Crit Club. Her writing has been featured in Hemispheric Institute’s Cuadernos, Nueva Luz: Photographic Journal, CultureWork Magazine, and the Guggenheim Museum Blog. evamayha.com @evamayha
