Julie Deamer (founding director) has created and guided successful art endeavors supporting contemporary artists for 15 years as the director of Four Walls in San Francisco and as a curator, writer, educator, and fundraiser.

board of directors

Rachel Allen (president) ) joined the board in April 2008. Rachel is an architect and principal of Rachel Allen Architecture, located in Chinatown, Los Angeles. In 2002 she was awarded the Mercedes T. Bass Rome Prize in Architecture from the American Academy in Rome.

Amy Pederson (vice president) joined the board in April 2007. Amy is Assistant Professor and Coordinator of Art History at Woodbury University in Burbank, California and an Art Historian with a Ph.D., from UCLA. Her thesis project was a joint investigation of Golden Age superhero comics and Modernist criticism and art from the mid-century period. She served as a co-curator of the 2009-2010 Mexicalli Biennale.

Maureen Branley (treasurer) is a founding board member since July 2003. Currently based in Zurich, Maureen is a management consultant focused on corporate strategy.

Jordan Biren joined the board in June 2006 and is the Chairman of the Program Committee. Jordan is an artist, writer, and educator. He is co-founder of Media Foundation, an artist run project dedicated to broadening media practice and dissemination through production, curation, exhibition, and publication.

David Bloom Bloom joined the board in August 2007 and is the Chairman of the Communications Committee. David works as a marketing consultant in Los Angeles. Previously, David was Associate Dean and Chief Communications Officer for the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California and Vice President of Corporate Communications at movie studio MGM Inc., and spent 20 years as an award-winning journalist.

Gary Cannone joined the board in July 2005 and serves on the organization's Program Committee. Gary is the web developer for the Autry National Center, and an artist and independent film programmer based in Los Angeles. He is also a member of the performance / musical group "Dude Dogg."

Carolyn Castaño joined the board in March 2010. She is a Los Angeles-based artist whose work has been exhibited widely, featured in LACMA’s critically acclaimed exhibition, Phantom Sightings: Art After the Chicano Movement, which has had extensive opportunity to travel. She is a graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute and UCLA- School of Art and Architecture.

Jeremy Rosenberg joined the board in February 2008 and is Chair of the Development Committee. Jeremy is a Los Angeles-based writer, editor, and administrator who has worked for the Los Angeles Times and the Annenberg Foundation, and has developed projects for universities and policy institutes. His "Think Tank LA" blog can be found at KCET.org, and his "Culture / City" column at Next American City online.

program advisory committee
for forthcoming south american program cycle

Leonardo Bravo is an artist, curator and founder/director of Big City Forum, an interdisciplinary project highlighting creative practices across architecture, design, and contemporary art that are reshaping our sense of urban public space. Mr. Bravo is also the Director of School Programs of the Music Center of Los Angeles County, where he oversees the implementation of strategic arts education partnerships with schools and districts across Los Angeles County.

Juan Devis is a Public Media artist and producer working in video, film, interactive media, gaming and public art. His work is often produced collaboratively to allow for a greater exchange of ideas. Devis is currently the Director of New Media Production at KCET – PBS Los Angeles, in charge of all original online content and special projects.

Jennifer Flores Sternad is a critic, curator, and researcher whose work focuses on militant art practice, public art, and intersections of cultural production and political organizing. She has done extensive research on these topics in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico and she received fellowships from Harvard University and the University of California Los Angeles to support her research in South America. She is currently a fellow at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions where she is working on an exhibition about performance art in Southern California.

Miki Garcia is the Executive Director of the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum (CAF), a non-profit, non-collecting alternative art space. Garcia has also worked in New York City at the Public Art Fund and in La Jolla, CA at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego. She participates as a guest curator, lecturer, and panelist for various organizations including El Museo del Barrio and Independent Curators International, both in NY, and contributes to a range of publications and exhibition catalogs.

Bill Kelley, Jr. is pursuing his PhD in collaborative art practices in the Americas at UCSD and is the Managing Editor of the non-profit art journal LatinArt.com

Glenn Phillips is Senior Project Specialist and Consulting Curator in the Department of Architecture and Contemporary Art at the Getty Research Institute. He was curator of the exhibition California Video at the J. Paul Getty Museum in 2008. He has also organized a number of video series in Los Angeles, including Pioneers of Brazilian Video Art 1973-1983; Surveying the Border: Three Decades of Video Art about the United States and Mexico; Radical Communication: Japanese Video Art 1968-88,; and Reckless Behavior.

Alma Ruiz is a curator at The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Los Angeles. She has curated numerous exhibitions of contemporary art, with a primary focus on the postwar period in Italy and Latin America, as well as working with emerging artists. She has been a juror for numerous exhibitions and art biennials in the United States and Latin America including the V Panama Biennial, the Tamayo Biennial in Mexico City, the Second Exhibition of Central American emerging artists in San Jose, Costa Rica, and Women Artists on Immigration in Los Angeles. She has served as a panelist for The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans and Creative Capital Foundation in New York, and is a member of the Advisory Committee for the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation in Miami, Florida.

Jordan Biren, Boardmember, Program Committee Chair
Miranda Siegel, Research & Curatorial Intern

board of advisors