Exhibitions for Social Justice: Exploring Curatorial Work for Social Justice at UTEP’S Centennial Museum and Chicago History Museum

Dr. Elena Gonzales will give a lecture on the state of curatorial work for social justice in the Americas and Europe. Dr. Gonzales’ lecture will include a discussion on her latest book, Exhibitions for Social Justice and on the exhibit Paso Ajenos: Social Justice and Inequalities in the Borderlands that is currently at the UTEP Centennial Museum and Chihuahuan Desert Gardens from August 13, 2022, to March 4, 2022, followed by a Q&A session with the audience. The event is on October 13, 2022, 3:30 pm-5:00 pm Liberal Arts room 222. Sponsored by Chicano Studies.

Gonzales, Ph.D. is an independent scholar and curator focusing on curatorial work for social justice and museums’ roles in society today and the author of Exhibitions for Social Justice from Routledge’s Museum Meanings Series (2019). Gonzales is curating Aquí en Chicago for the Chicago History Museum (forthcoming in fall, 2025). Elena Gonzales received her doctorate in American Studies and Masters in Public Humanities from Brown University in 2015 and 2010 respectively. She has curated exhibitions since 2006 and has taught curatorial studies since 2010. In 2012, Gonzales was a Ford Dissertation Fellow. Gonzales has served as a visiting scholar at Northwestern University in American Studies and the School of Education and Social Policy. She is a contributing author of Change is Required: How Museums Can Prepare for the Post-Pandemic Age, new from Rowman & Littlefield and the American Association for State and Local History, summer 2022.