Juliana Steiner ’17: Curating as a Practice of Care, Connection, and Becoming

Written by Elva Zhang, Visual Arts Administration, ‘25

Juliana Steiner, a 2017 graduate of NYU’s Visual Arts Administration (VAA) program, is an independent curator, writer, and researcher working between Bogotá and New York. Originally from Colombia, Juliana has gradually developed a curatorial language shaped by advocacy for Latin American artists, long-term collaboration, and a deep commitment to working with communities. Her practice is rooted in interdisciplinary approaches to contemporary art, explores environmental justice, more-than-human species, and shifting landscapes through social science, pedagogy, and architectural frameworks.

Before moving to New York, Juliana studied business and studio art as an undergraduate in Bogotá, where she became increasingly aware of structural gaps in the local art ecosystem—many emerging artists lacked spaces to exhibit, and smaller galleries had limited access to platforms such as art fairs. In 2011, she co-founded Espacio Odeón—a nonprofit space housed in Bogotá’s first theater, long abandoned and dormant. The project aimed to reactivate the building and reimagine it as a site for contemporary art and public engagement, and its first project was an alternative art fair.

That experience marked a turning point, affirming Juliana’s interest in building connections between artists, institutions, and communities, while also revealing the complexity of independent curatorial work. “I was more interested in becoming an art practitioner via a curatorial vision,” she reflects, “but I also understood that working independently entails not just curating but everything in between.” Seeking practical knowledge in fundraising, administration, and institutional structures, and hoping to deepen her capacity to support projects like Espacio Odeón, she decided to pursue graduate studies at VAA. 

New York City proved to be fertile ground. Immersed in the art scene and VAA’s interdisciplinary curriculum—spanning curation, marketing, development, and grantmaking—helped Juliana shape a practice that is both conceptually rigorous and practically grounded. Upon graduating, Juliana became part of the curatorial collective Good To Know with Alex Valls and Julianna Vezzetti, who shared a similar artistic vision. One of their earliest projects was a pop-up exhibition during Art Basel Miami Beach in 2017, at a time when the fair was still largely centered around the shoreline. Their most ambitious initiative, La Bodega y Más, took place in Little Havana, activating abandoned storefronts along Calle Ocho with site-specific installations by Latin American and Caribbean artists. By inviting audiences away from the beach and into local neighborhoods, the project foregrounded community, place, and the cultural histories embedded in Miami’s Latin American communities.

Community engagement continued to shape Juliana’s trajectory. While at VAA, she took a Museum Education course taught by Wendy Woon, who was the Deputy Director at MoMA’s Education Department, which led to a position in the museum’s Education Department in late 2017. Working as a studio assistant at the People’s Studio—an outreach educational space open to the public—reinforced her interest in education as a core element of curatorial practice and clarified her commitment to working at the intersection of art and community.

After graduation, Juliana became a curatorial resident at Residency Unlimited in Brooklyn. During this period, she curated Holes in Maps at 610 Art Space on the Lower East Side in December 2018. The group exhibition examined borders, migration, and the instability of maps as tools of power and control. Through works addressing globalization, trade, and mobility, the exhibition challenged fixed notions of territory and belonging. One of the works by Cuban artist Reynier Leyva Novo invited viewers to peer through a telescope pointed toward the ocean, collapsing distance and questioning geopolitical boundaries. Through the exhibition, Juliana articulated a curatorial voice that embraces uncertainty, complexity, and alternative ways of understanding space.

Alongside her projects in the United States, Juliana has maintained a strong presence in Colombia. Together with her aunt, an anthropologist, she initiated La Reserva Guatoc in Barichara, a small town far from Colombia’s major urban centers. During COVID, Juliana returned to Colombia and reactivated the project, inviting Puerto Rican artist Jorge González Santos for a residency. Working closely with local residents, González Santos led weaving workshops using fique, a native plant fiber, emphasizing collective making and shared process. They collaborated on a woven blanket that later traveled with the artist and Juliana to Puerto Rico, where it was carried through different landscapes and bodies of water—imbuing the textile with new meanings, histories, and lives.

While in Colombia, Juliana was invited to join Bard College’s Fisher Center LAB Biennial, Common Ground, a decentralized curatorial initiative that challenged the conventional biennial model. Focused on food sovereignty and land-based knowledge, the theme of the Biennial aligned closely with Juliana’s research interests. Within this context, Juliana developed Ecotone: Chagras, Payaos, Camellones, which unfolded alongside her publication Ecotone: Silent Revolutions, exploring ancestral food technologies in Colombia as tools for cultural and environmental preservation. Working with artists, activists, anthropologists, and Indigenous communities, Juliana developed six interrelated projects. One central investigation focused on zanjas y camellones—an ancient system of channels and raised beds used in Indigenous farming practices across South America. Rather than seeking definitive outcomes, Juliana approached the work as a process of becoming—planting a seed and allowing relationships, knowledge, and care to grow organically. For Juliana, building trust through transparency and honesty is essential when working with communities and collaborators beyond the art world.

In a fitting full-circle moment, Juliana returned to NYU last fall, this time not as an educator teaching for the VAA program. Her transition from alumna to instructor underscores the enduring connection she maintains with the program and her commitment to fostering the next generation of cultural practitioners. Across all her work, Juliana sees herself as a bridge—connecting geographies, disciplines, and people. Whether between Colombia and the United States, art and ecology, or institutions and communities, her practice is driven by repair and reimagination. In a moment when many feel overwhelmed by environmental and social crises, Juliana remains grounded in the belief that art can offer alternative ways of relating to the world—ways rooted in care, joy, and collective transformation.