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Video: Latin American Design and Decorative Arts with Christina de León

Americas Society Visual Arts invited de León to discuss her curatorial research and work building a collection of U.S. Latinx and Latin American design at Cooper Hewitt,  Smithsonian Design. 

Americas Society Visual Arts invited Christina de León, associate curator of Latino Design at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design to a virtual conversation on October 8, 2020 in which she discussed her curatorial research and experience building a collection of U.S. Latinx and Latin American design at Cooper Hewitt. De León discussed her work and process and the importance of highlighting Latinx design from the collections. “Thinking about the way in which the history of design, the history of needle work, of textiles, of wallpaper and all of these things—I think in many ways we take for granted. I feel it's really fascinating when we contextualize it and we think about it in relation to more contemporary objects”, said de León when making the connection between Dichoso será el pajarito (1995), currently on view at Abrigo by Feliciano Centurión at Americas Society’s gallery, and Sampler (1853), a silk embroidery on cotton which is part of the Cooper Hewitt’s textile collection by Dolores Obando. 

About Christina de León: Prior to joining Cooper Hewitt, de León served as associate curator at Americas Society, where she organized numerous exhibitions and publications throughout her six-year tenure. She has also held previous positions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Cloisters. De León is currently a doctoral candidate at the Bard Graduate Center, where her research focuses on the design and decorative arts of the Americas.

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