Emmanuel Ortega (PhD, Art History, University of New Mexico) is the Marilynn Thoma Scholar and Assistant Professor in Art of the Spanish Americas at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a Scholar in Residence at the Newberry Library for 2022-2023. As a scholar and curator,  Ortega has lectured nationally and internationally on images of autos-de-fe, nineteenth-century Mexican landscape painting, and visual representations of the New Mexico Pueblo peoples in Novohispanic Franciscan martyr paintings. Springing from his research interests, Ortega has curated in Mexico and the United States; his latest endeavor is the upcoming exhibition titled Contemporary Ex-Votos: Devotion Beyond Medium, opened at the New Mexico State University Art Museum in September of this year. An essay titled, "The Mexican Picturesque and the Sentimental Nation: A Study in Nineteenth-Century Landscape," was published by The Art Bulletin in the Summer of 2021. His book project, Visualizing Franciscan Anxiety and the Distortion of Native Resistance: The Domesticating Mission is under contract with Routledge. He is a recurrent lecturer for Arquetopia Foundation for Development, the largest artist residency in México

Ed Gomez is an artist, curator, and educator located in Los Angeles, CA. His academic research includes border art, alternative art exhibition platforms, and concepts revolving around identity and border politics. He is currently an Associate Professor of Art at California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB), and specializes in art and technology with an emphasis on 3D software fabrication, digital art, Border Art and Chicanx Art. Professor Gomez currently serves on the Advisory Committee for The Cheech Marin Center of Chicano Art & Culture of the Riverside Art Museum. In 2006, he co-founded the MexiCali Biennial, a bi-national art and music program addressing the region of the US-Mexico border, for which he is currently a director and co-president.  

Kerry Doyle is the Director of the Rubin Center for the Visual Arts at The University of Texas at El Paso.  She specializes in curatorial projects that are interdisciplinary, participatory and performative, with a special focus on the border as subject and site.  Doyle regularly collaborates with individuals and institutions from both El Paso and Ciudad Juarez in the execution of a wide range of interdisciplinary and community-engaged programming. She has curated and organized original exhibitions, commissions and performances by international artists including Tomás Saraceno, Tania Candiani, Regina Jose Galindo, Teresa Margolles, Máximo Gonzalez, Jose Antonio Vega Macotela, Fiamma Montezemolo, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Minerva Cuevas and many others. She was a fellow at the Smithsonian Latino Institute (2009) and the Getty Institute for Museum Leadership (2014). She holds a BA in Political Science from De Paul University, Chicago; a BA in Drawing and Printmaking and an MA in Border Studies from UTEP.

Christian Diego Diego (Ciudad Juárez, 1981)

Graduated in Visual Arts (2007) from the Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez, he dedicates himself to cultural management and teaching. He was a member of the V.I.A. A.C. collective, has collaborated with the Secretaría de Cultura del Estado de Chihuahua for the Border Book Fair, and with Alas y Raíces for Creative Summers. He served as coordinator of the Bachelor of Visual Arts at the UACJ and, since March 2019, directs the Museo de Arte de Ciudad Juárez, which is part of the INBAL National Network of Museums. He is a member of the Linking Council of the Municipality of Ciudad Juárez, the Network of Museums and Cultural Centers of Ciudad Juárez, the Desert Mountain Time Binational Network, and is a curatorial advisor to Benito Greene’s Art in Urban Scale program. He coursed the diploma in Executive Training for Cultural and Museum Leaders from the Instituto de Liderazgo en Museos A.C. and the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Cultural Development at the Centro de Posgrados del Estado de Mexico.

Christian Diego Diego (Ciudad Juárez, 1981) 

Licenciado en Artes Visuales (2007) por la Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez, se dedica a la gestión cultural y a la docencia, formo parte del colectivo V.I.A. A.C., ha colaborado con la Secretaria de Cultura del Estado de Chihuahua para la Feria del Libro de la Frontera y Veranos Creativos para Alas y Raíces. Fungió como coordinador de la Licenciatura en Artes Visuales de la UACJ y desde marzo del 2019 dirige el Museo de Arte de Ciudad Juárez que forma parte de la Red Nacional de Museos INBAL. Miembro del Consejo de Vinculación del Municipio de Ciudad Juárez, la Red de Museos y Centros Culturales de Cd. Juárez y de la Red Binacional Desierto Mountain Time y es consejero curatorial de Benito Greene Arte en Escala. Curso el diplomado en Formación Ejecutiva para Lideres Culturales y de Museos del Instituto de Liderazgo en Museos A.C. y de la Universidad Iberoamericana en la Ciudad de México y cursa actualmente la Maestría en Desarrollo Cultural en el Centro de Posgrados del Estado de México.

Josie Lopez  s the Head Curator and Curator of Art at the Albuquerque Museum where she curated Indelible Blue: Indigo Across the Globe, The Printer’s Proof, and The Carved Line: Block Printmaking in New Mexico. Currently, she is working on organizing upcoming traveling exhibitions for the museum and curating current and upcoming exhibitions featuring a broad range of art historical and contemporary themes. Lopez oversees the museum’s collections and the permanent exhibition Common Ground: Art in New Mexico. Prior to her curatorial position at the Albuquerque Museum, Lopez curated: Puerto Rico: Defying Darkness, Currency: What do you Value?, and Species in Peril Along the Rio Grande at 516 Arts. Lopez completed a BA in History and a Masters in Teaching at Brown University. She completed her Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley. Her dissertation explored printmaking in 19th-century Mexico, Spain, and France. Lopez’s research and curatorial interests include examining art as a discursive agent in the political arena, the intersections of art and the environment, modern and contemporary Latin American art, and the history of Mexican and New Mexican art. As the 2013-15 Eleanor Tufts Fellow at SMU she taught courses on modern Mexico and the prints of Francisco Goya. She has also taught courses on the history of printmaking and European art at the University of New Mexico.

Edgar Picazo Merino is the founding co-director of the non-profit Azul Arena Organization, as well as the Editor-in-chief of the magazine under the same name. His work focuses on the ethical representation of border issues through arts and culture. He has worked on a number of projects as producer, project manager, and visual artist. Picazo has also collaborated with major institutions and organizations in the El Paso-Juárez border region, such as the Rubin Center for the Visual Arts, El Paso Museum of Art, the Women and Gender Studies Department at UTEP, Instituto Municipal de las Mujeres, among others. He has also worked with many local and international artists such as Laura Turón, Haydee Alonso, REZIZTE, Minerva Cuevas, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Gaku Tsutaja, and many others. He recently began writing for Hyperallergic and Southwest Contemporary.