Makeda Best explores how American labor histories and images have informed her writing and her curatorial projects.

BIO

With over 25 years of professional experience working in the arts, Makeda Best is currently Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Oakland Museum of California, where she oversees the Curatorial, Collections, and Production departments. A former curator at the Harvard Art Museums, her exhibitions included Time is Now: Photography and Social Change in James Baldwin’s America, Crossing Lines, Constructing Home: Displacement and Belonging in Contemporary Art, Devour the Land: War and American Landscape Photography Since 1970, and Darrel Ellis: Please Stay Home. The catalog for Devour the Land was awarded 2022 Photography Catalogue of the Year by Aperture/Paris Photo. Her most recent exhibition, “American Job: 1940-2011,” was on view at the International Center for Photography in early 2025. Best has contributed to numerous exhibition catalogs, journals and scholarly publications. She is the author of Elevate the Masses: Alexander Gardner, Photography and Democracy in 19th Century America and co-editor of Conflict and Identity in American Art. She is currently working on several book projects, including one about labor in nineteenth century America and she is co-authoring a professional guide for emerging scholars. Best has taught at Harvard University, Tufts University, the University of Vermont, and the California College of the Arts.  In addition to serving on many juries, panels, and advisory teams, she is a co-founder and current board member of Museums Moving Forward. She holds a MFA from CalArts in Studio Photography and a PhD from Harvard University.

This VCS Forum event is hosted by the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, and will take place in the Wattis gallery on the second floor of the CCA campus' Double Ground building.