HOUSTON, TX.- Houston Center for Contemporary Craft announced that, following a national search, it has named Sarah Darro as its new curator and exhibitions director.
“HCCC is excited to welcome Sarah Darro back to Houston,” said HCCC Executive Director Perry Price. “After three years producing innovative and exciting exhibitions at the Center as our curatorial fellow, Sarah has continued to develop and deepen her curatorial voice in craft at peer institutions across the country and earn impressive accolades for her work. Her accomplishments, her relationships with artists and communities, and her novel approach to exhibition development and design will find a receptive home at HCCC and within the cultural community of Houston.”
Over the past decade, as a curator, writer, and visual anthropologist working at the nexus of contemporary art, craft, and design, Darro has established an intersectional curatorial vision that is invested in reinvigorating museum spaces as forums for discourse, innovation, action, and engagement through experience. Her research interests include artist communities and collectives, relational aesthetics, movement and performance practice in craft, architecturally influenced design, radical accessibility, systems esthetics, and the life histories and agency of objects.
A former HCCC Windgate Curatorial Fellow from 2015 – 2018, she has since completed a curatorial research fellowship in modern and contemporary glass at the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, NY, and is currently the gallery manager of the Center for Craft in Asheville, NC, where she also founded the Green Room Gallery, a “movable kunsthalle" and dedicated long-form color study. In late November, she will return to HCCC, and to Houston, her favorite art city, to begin her new position. Darro commented, "I am thrilled to serve as the next curator and exhibitions director of Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. Stewarding the exhibitions program of an institution that has led the charge in expansive, community-driven explorations of craft is a tremendous honor. I look forward to joining the passionate team at HCCC and to developing rigorous, adventurous curatorial presentations that reflect the vibrant cultural fabric of Houston and harness the enormous potential of new and unfolding narratives of craft."
In her new role, Darro will be responsible for leading the development, execution, and management of exhibitions and related programming at HCCC. She will work closely with HCCC Windgate Curatorial Fellow Cydney Pickens, as well as the organization’s staff, to design and implement public programs that support HCCC’s mission and strategic goals.
Sarah Darro is the 2022 Jentel Foundation Art Critic at the Archie Bray Foundation and was the 2019 American Craft Council Emerging Voices Scholar Awardee. In addition to her prior roles at HCCC, the Corning Museum of Glass, and the Center for Craft, she has held museum positions at a range of institutions internationally, including the Mütter Museum (Philadelphia, PA), Pitt Rivers Museum (Oxford, United Kingdom), Villa La Pietra Museum (Florence, Italy), and the Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts (Philadelphia, PA). She holds a Master’s degree in visual, material, and museum anthropology from the University of Oxford and dual Bachelor’s degrees in art history and anthropology from Barnard College of Columbia University.
