BIOGRAPHY
Hirugami is a first-generation transnational Mexican Japanese immigrant, formerly undocumented.
She holds an MA in Art Business from the Sotheby’s Institute of Art, in conjunction with the Drucker School of Management and Getty Leadership Institute at Claremont Graduate University. Her most recent MA from Chicanx Studies at UCLA is entitled “Political Art Action: The Aesthetics of Undocumentedness.” Hirugami also holds BAs in the fields of Art History, Chicano Studies, and Mexican Studies from UCLA, currently a lecturer and doctoral candidate at UCLA, where she epistemologically braids the aesthetics of undocumentedness to challenge immigration policy and politics.
Hirugami is the founder and CEO of CuratorLove, Co-founder of the UNDOC+Collective, the ED at AHSC, a Professor at CBMArts and SMC, Arts for LA Fellow, NALAC NLI Fellow, and CCI Catalyst. As a Getty and Kress Foundation Fellow, she has developed curatorial statements at museums across Mexico and the United States. After being a Public Art Curator for the Department of Cultural Affairs in the City of Los Angeles, Hirugami became the Curatorial Director for the Ronald McDonald House Charities while leading various commercial galleries. She has curated exhibitions for galleries and museums across the globe, and her written work has been published internationally.
More on Erika Hirugami at CuratorLove and UNDOC+Collective.
RESEARCH INTEREST
- Aesthetics of Undocumentedness
- Undocreative labor
- Art Law and Latinx Labor Politics in the US.
- Emancipatory policies for undocumented artists.
- Latinx aesthetics and transcendental curatorial praxis.
- Necropolitics in Mexican aesthetics.
- Institutional accountability and community-driven practices.
- Latinx contemporary aesthetics market value and business.
- Transcendental policies for Latinx artists in the art business.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
- Pertenecer | Encarnar: Die Ästhetik Des Undokumentiert-Seins
- Pertenecer | Encarnar: Aesthetics of Undocumentedness
- Yet, amongst ourselves, we know: fencescapes as site of infinite undoc+ deliverance.
- Exclusion: How immigration policy racialized the U.S.
- Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies – Vol.45 No.1 Spring 2020
- On Their Backs: Latinx Labor in the U.S.
- Impeach Art History
- Who owns contemporary art?
- Who are museums accountable to?
- Reinventing the Wheel: Museum Diversity and Inclusion for All
- In the Shadow of History
- Big Data and the future of Museums
- Complete list of Publications.
COURSES
- Aesthetics of Undocumentedness: Undocreative Labor in the Arts Industries
- Chicanos in Film: Undocumentedness in Hollywood
- Art Market Dynamics
- Aesthetics of Undocumentedness: Art, Migration, Policy, and Politics
- Latinx Immigration (Art) Policy & Politics
- Radical Empathy: Undocreative Labor
- Coalesce; Beyond the boundaries of Latinx Aesthetics
- Living Collections; Latinx communities and their stories
- Monumental Installations; complexity and logistics of creation
- Transcendental Curatorial Organizations; LA as Home.
- Pathways to Diversity in the Arts Professions
- Curating your career
- Latinas in LA’s Creative Fields
- Big Data at Museums.