Jurors

Drew Sawyer (he/him) is the Sondra Gilman Curator of Photography at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY. He has a PhD in art history from Columbia University, New York. Sawyer has curated numerous exhibitions including Copy Machine Manifestos: Artists Who Make Zines (2023), Suneil Sanzgiri: Here the Earth Grows Gold (2023), Jimmy DeSana: Submission (2022), John Edmonds: A Sidelong Glance (2020), Liz Johnson Artur: Dusha (2019) and Art after Stonewall, 1969 to 1989 (2019), for which he received an Award for Excellence from the Association of Art Museum Curators. He is also a regular contributor to publications and magazines. 

Claudia E. Zapata (they/them) is the Blanton Museum of Art’s first Associate Curator of Latino Art. Zapata has a BA and MA in art history from the University of Texas at Austin and a PhD in art history from Southern Methodist University’s RASC/a: Rhetorics of Art, Space and Culture program, Dallas, TX. Zapata was previously the Curator of Exhibitions and Programs at the Mexic-Arte Museum, Austin, TX and a Curatorial Assistant of Latinx Art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC. In 2022-2023, they were part of the first cohort of Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellows at the University of California, Los Angeles, administered by the Chicano Studies Research Center.