Gallery Talk: Erika Umali on To My Best Friend

Erika Umali is the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston’s first Curator of Collections. She leads strategy around collection development and practices and highlights the ICA’s collection through focused exhibitions and programming. She has contributed to several ICA exhibitions, including Portraits from the ICA Collection, Wordplay, and An Indigenous Present. Previously, she served as the inaugural Assistant Curator of Collections at the Brooklyn Museum where she supported collecting strategies, shepherded thousands of acquisitions, and co-curated Jeffrey Gibson: When Fire Is Applied to a Stone It Cracks. Her work focuses on cross-cultural exchange, accessibility within cultural institutions, engaging local and source communities, and decolonizing practices. 

Umali received her B.A. in anthropology from Bridgewater State University, Massachusetts, with a focus on the art and material culture of Native North America, and an M.A. in museum studies from New York University.