Careers in the Art and Creative Industries

Hosted by ICA’s Student Board, day two of this year’s annual Student Week continues with a special panel that explores the career paths of individuals working in the art and creative industries.

Moderated by Associate Director of The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation, Chloe Reison, this panel discussion features artists, art administrators, and creatives working at the intersection of contemporary art, publishing, community engagement, and more.

As alums from The University of Pennsylvania and neighboring schools, these panelists will discuss how to break into the industry and work your network, taking advantage of the resources at your disposal. In collaboration with Campus Philly, the event will begin with a presentation on cultural and creative opportunities in the city, followed by a moderated discussion and light reception.

This program is free and open to all!

Registration

Captioning for this program will be provided.

ICA is committed to creating a welcoming environment for all visitors. For more notes on accessibility including accessible parking nearby visit our Accessibility landing page. If you require any accessibility accommodations or have any questions about the program, please contact Brittany Clottey (bclottey@ica.upenn.edu).

About the panelists

Zindzi Harley is an independent curator, brand strategist, and creative consultant. She holds a B.A. in Arts Administration with a minor in Art History from the University of Kentucky and an M.A. in Museum Studies from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where her research centered on the activism, histories, and organizational frameworks of Black museums. As a student, she was among the first DEI Fellows at the University of the Arts and participated in the inaugural Museum Professional Seminar at the Studio Museum in Harlem. Harley’s curatorial efforts focus on enriching the narratives and interpretations of contemporary art, material culture, fashion, and design related to the African Diaspora. Previously, Harley served as Assistant Curator at the African American Museum in Philadelphia, where she played a key role in curating exhibitions and programming. She founded the Philadelphia Chapter of Black Girls in Art Spaces, organizing meetups at notable venues like the Fabric Workshop Museum and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Her involvement extends to various Philadelphia entities and historic sites, including roles such as co-curating programming for the 2023 Mural Arts Black Artist Fellowship, managing community programs at Ars Nova Workshop, and curating exhibitions at Past Present Projects. Additionally, Harley is the Founder and Creative Director of Zindzine, a creative agency, and quarterly magazine for the curator in all of us, offering tailored brand strategy services including social media, PR, creative direction, consulting, and Programming for cultural brands, artists, and institutions. Currently, Zindzi is advancing her studies by pursuing a PhD in Art Theory, Aesthetics, and Philosophy at the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts where she was recently named the 2024 David C. Driskell Fellow.

Farrah Rahaman is a cultural worker whose inquiry and meaning-making processes is activated through a scaffolding of scholarly research, cultural organizing, curation, and filmmaking. Farrah’s interdisciplinary methodology centers Caribbean women’s narratives, political and social imaginations, and visual culture. She is a PhD Candidate at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Farrah was a part of the BlackStar Film Festival team for a decade, where she served as panel curator and producer, and has provided curatorial and research assistance on the exhibitions Assemblage, Lossless and Swarm: Terence Nance. She is currently producing a performance series and installation for BlackStar Projects with the artist Joiri Minaya. As the 2023-2024 Curator-in-Residence at Express Newark she mounted the film and video exhibition Things We Do in the Dark: Cinematic Experiments in Kinship which featured thirty video works from artists who engage in collaborative approaches to contemporary filmmaking. Currently she is the Director of CAMRA (Collective for Advancing Multimodal Research Arts) at the University of Pennsylvania.

Riley Wesolowski is the Tour and Highlights Supervisor at Christie’s, where she oversees traveling exhibitions for New York sales at global locations, as well as global exhibitions touring in New York. Riley joined Christie’s in 2022 as a coordinator for the firm’s public New York exhibitions, spanning over 20,000 square feet of gallery space across all sale categories. Riley began her early career as a curatorial work-study student at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) while earning a degree in Art History from Penn with a focus on Postwar Art. Riley brings her passion for the arts into her daily operational support of Christie’s, carefully overseeing the presentation of the many masterful objects that come to New York each season. Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, Riley now resides in Brooklyn, New York.

Kaitlin Pomerantz (she/they) is an interdisciplinary artist, educator and curator based in Philadelphia. Pomerantz works across mediums to pose questions about ecological relations, land use, power, and place. Pomerantz is the founder of MATTERS, an arts learning initiative connecting art and design materials, labor, and land, which currently runs as a course at University of Pennsylvania in partnership with RAIR Philly. Pomerantz is a critic in the MFA program at the School of Visual Arts, and a lecturer in Fine Arts and Visual Studies at University of Pennsylvania.

Chloe Reison is the Associate Director of The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation at the University of Pennsylvania. The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation’s mission is to support and inspire creative practice and practitioners across the university – in all twelve schools, in the university’s artistic and cultural centers, and through the many partnerships and collaborations that connect Penn to the world at large. We support a vibrant creative community and wish to ensure that our community members are valued and supported in the ways necessary to thrive. Chloe joined The Sachs Program in 2017 to establish its grantmaking initiative, and prior to that worked for the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage supporting arts and culture across the five-county region of Southeastern Pennsylvania. She has an MFA from Penn’s Weitzman School of Design (‘12) and a BS from Skidmore College (‘08).

Support

Programming at ICA is made possible in part by the Emily and Jerry Spiegel Fund to Support Contemporary Culture and Visual Arts and the Lise Spiegel Wilks and Jeffrey Wilks Family Foundation. Public and Student Engagement at ICA is supported by the Bernstein Public Engagement Fund, Suzanne Weiss Doft & Jacob W. Doft, Stacey & Robert Goergen Jr., Hilarie L. & Mitchell Morgan, the Nash Family Foundation, Joline & David Stemerman, and by Dana McDonald Strong & Mark W. Strong.