1. The MoMA Experience
Q: Could you tell us a bit about your day-to-day work as a Cisneros Fellow at MoMA?
As a Cisneros Fellow at Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Diana Iturralde has spent the past two years navigating the intersection of academic research, curatorial practice, and public engagement within one of the world’s leading cultural institutions. Working within the museum’s Drawings and Prints Department and alongside the Cisneros Institute, Iturralde has contributed to a wide-ranging research initiative exploring spirituality in modern Latin American and Caribbean art between 1920 and 1970.
Her day-to-day work has involved supporting the planning and execution of conferences, study sessions, symposia, and an upcoming publication tied to the Institute’s long-term research agenda. The fellowship has also included archival research, object-based study, editorial coordination, and contributions to MoMA’s digital platforms, including artist biographies and essays for the museum’s online publications.
Q: In what ways has being part of such a major global institution changed or challenged how you think about the “real-world” impact of your academic research?
Reflecting on the experience, Iturralde notes that working within a global institution fundamentally reshaped her understanding of the impact of academic research. “Research becomes part of what is ultimately experienced by a wider public,” she explains. “Every recommendation can influence acquisitions, publications, exhibitions, or programming, shaping how Latin American and Caribbean art is represented institutionally.”
2. The Dissertation & The Museum
Q: What is the title of your dissertation project and what is its central focus?
Her doctoral dissertation, tentatively titled Tracing the Amazon: Visual Representations of Andean Amazonia at the Turn of the Centuries, examines how colonial discourses and Amazonian ontologies have generated competing visual narratives about the region. Focusing particularly on Ecuador and Peru, the project analyzes how visual culture has historically supported expansionist and industrial rhetoric, while contemporary artists challenge these inherited representations through image-making practices rooted in resistance, memory, and Indigenous presence.
Foregrounding the work of Indigenous and contemporary artists, the dissertation argues that visual practices can function simultaneously as critiques of environmental injustice and as proposals for alternative understandings of the Amazon’s cultural and ecological significance.
3. Explaining Amazonia Açu
Q: You were a key participant in the Amazonia Açu project. What was your role in such an initiative and how does the project seek to rethink our understanding of the Amazonian landscape?
Alongside her doctoral research, Iturralde was also a key participant in Amazonia Açu, a major exhibition presented at Americas Society from September 2025 through April 2026. Developed collaboratively by curators from the nine territories of the Pan-Amazon region, the exhibition sought to move beyond reductive and colonial understandings of the Amazon by emphasizing its plurality, Indigenous epistemologies, territorial struggles, and forms of collective care.
As one of the nine co-curators, Iturralde contributed to year-long conversations and exchanges that shaped the exhibition’s conceptual framework. Representing Ecuador, she focused on amplifying historically marginalized perspectives and highlighting artists from diverse Indigenous nations. Through works by Colectivo TAWNA, Nancy Santi, Estela Dagua, Wilfrido Lusitande Piaguaje, and Angélica Alomoto, her curatorial contribution explored themes of spirituality, territorial reclamation, care, and memory while positioning the Amazon as a living and contested space rather than a resource for extraction.
4. A Favorite Discovery
Q: During your fellowship, was there a particular artist, artwork, or document in the MoMA collection that resonated with your own research interests?
The MoMA fellowship expanded Iturralde’s engagement with artistic practices beyond the specific geographic focus of her dissertation. Through the Institute’s research project, she deepened her understanding of artists working across the Caribbean, Indigenous communities, and the African diaspora.
Among the artists and scholars whose work particularly resonated with her were Francisco Huichaqueo, Rosana Paulino, Fabiano Kueva, Denilson Baniwa, Rosângela Rennó, Glicéria Tupinambá, Mullu TV, and aqui Thami, as well as curators and thinkers including Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Luisa Elvira Belaunde, Patricia Marroquin Norby, Fernanda Pitta, Nancy Adajania, and Claudia Mattos Avolese.
5. Looking Ahead
Q: When are you planning to defend your dissertation, and what are your plans for the future after completing your PhD?
Iturralde plans to defend her dissertation at the end of the next academic year. Looking ahead, she hopes to continue working on modern and contemporary art of the Americas through the lens of non-Western ontologies and the environmental humanities, while teaching at the university level, developing her dissertation into a book project, and collaborating with artists and scholars through exhibitions and public-facing initiatives.
