HOUSTON, TX.- DiverseWorks announced the appointment of independent curator Ashley DeHoyos as our new Assistant Curator. She will begin her new position on May 14, 2018.

She comes to DiverseWorks from Baltimore, MD, where over the last year she worked as the Assistant Director of Community Art and Service at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), providing support for emerging artists and developing year-long community-driven projects across the city.

“Ashley DeHoyos is an amazing addition to our team,” said DiverseWorks Executive Director & Chief Curator, Xandra Eden. “Her expertise in multidisciplinary art, combined with her fearlessness in addressing important social issues and crossing cultural divides will strengthen our ability to engage with new artists, audiences, and ideas.”

With a passion for “creating cultural platforms for new and existing voices and an interest in thinking about the gallery as a vehicle for non-traditional art practices, social justice movements, and performative actions,” Ashley has spent time working with non-traditional artists, activists, and cultural producers to explore the gallery as a space for cultural exchange. She has curated several projects and public programs, including Cultural Platforms for Resistance at VisArts, Rockville, MD (2017), TRACES Ni de aquí, Ni de allá at Area 405, Baltimore (2016), and MoonLIT, a Non-Binary & People of Color Pop-Up Zine Festival in partnership with Coalition, Hysteria, and La Liga zine founders at Space 2640, Baltimore (2017). Most recently, Ashley served as Curatorial Assistant for the performance art collective Labbodies to produce Light Happening II for the 2017 Light City Festival in Baltimore where she programmed eight nights of performances as part of the White House performance stage.

A native of Baytown, TX, Ashley was an intern for DiverseWorks in 2013 while she was pursuing her BFA at Sam Houston State University. She has since gone on to receive her MFA in Curatorial Practice, with a concentration in Critical Studies, from MICA. Ashley is thrilled to be returning to Houston where she hopes to further explore how art and audience can unite to create a more just and equitable world.

As Assistant Curator at DiverseWorks, Ashley will work closely with Executive Director & Chief Curator Xandra Eden to realize a full range of visual, performing, and public arts programming. In addition, she will manage the Diverse Discourse Lecture & Studio Visit Series and The Idea Fund, a regranting program presented in partnership with Aurora Picture Show and Project Row Houses and funded by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.