ARAD is thrilled to have an opportunity to speak with Dr. Tania Aparicio Morales to learn more about her experiences at our program, what she is looking forward to in the new academic year, and what she does outside her work at Teachers College.
Tell us a bit about yourself. Where are you from? What is your educational background and what are your research interests?
I’m from Lima, Peru and Brooklyn, New York. I moved to the US in 2007 and New York in 2009. I’m an immigrant, so I’m from both places and I take pride in communicating a both/and approach to the question “Where are you from?” because as immigrants we are often asked to pick one when in reality we experience a sense of double belonging or in-betweenness which is better captured by a both/and answer.
I graduated from the New School for Social Research. I got my Ph.D. in Sociology and my areas of focus have been sociology of art and culture. I got a Fullbright grant to go to Mexico and I got a Mellon Foundation fellowship as well during my last year to write the dissertation. Those were really important parts of my project during my time at the New School.
For my Ph.D., I did a comparative study between two organizations, two art organizations that produce film curatorship, that have film curatorial teams. And I did an archival and ethnographic study of their practices to understand what are the logics that they use, that they follow to make their decisions, their curatorial decisions. One of the cases was the MoMA film department and the other was in Mexico City, which is like the National Cinematech. Each case was interesting in its own way. MoMA was the first museum to introduce film into its collection in the 1930s. Cineteca is very successful in terms of audience. They get 1.3 million people to watch art and independent cinema every year.
So I studied both of those in comparison during my Ph.D. For my comparative study, I was looking at how curatorship is produced. Who is involved, how are decisions made, and how are films categorized? I was interested in understanding how decisions are made. From my observations, I noticed that there were two very different ways of decision-making. In my book project, I talk about the two organizations’ histories and how these histories shaped a model or an organizational strategy on how to make decisions. The MoMA model I call the Pioneer model, and the Cineteca is the Popularity Model. In those spaces, these strategic models guide the way that film is understood. So, the pioneer model focuses on defining and redefining what film as art is. While at the Cineteca, the model had an emphasis on audiences and on creating access and democratizing access to cinema arts. Even though they were showing the same films in both places, the way that they were thinking about it and the way that they were showing it in space and time were very different. So I wrote about how these models have implications for how curators carry out their work. How curatorial teams like support staff carry out their work and also how infrastructure and technology are used following those models. I also talk about how those models shape working conditions at those places, and the uses of “diversity” as a narrative or a discourse. In other words, I analyze how the two models work for people and technology, but also for working conditions and diversity practices.
Before grad school, I studied film production as an undergraduate. I have a video practice and I still work on those projects that are parallel to my sociological research. In my practice, I experiment with what video is and I work closely with communities in my native Peru. While I was in grad school, I worked at the Vera List Center for Arts and Politics, with two artists: Carolina Caycedo and Etcetera, which is a collective from Argentina. I was helping them carry out their projects doing research. Then, I worked at the Photographers’ Greenbook in their research initiatives So that’s what I was up to before I got to TC. I was getting my PhD, developing my video practice, and working with artists in arts organizations in different capacities. I developed expertise in how arts organizations function. In particular, how people in arts organizations feel in terms of inequality, particularly in relation to working conditions and what diversity means in practice.
How have these previous experiences influenced your teaching, and how has teaching influenced your established understanding of artistic practices?
The research I did during my PhD and that is my book project now does not necessarily discuss the history of “Diversity” in the Arts, but to teach that course in the Fall of 2022, I had to think about how to frame diversity in the arts historically. I had to think about how to place it in a history of colonialism, patriarchy, white supremacy, and racial hierarchies in the arts.
I dug into understanding the particular history of diversity discourses in the US, which is so connected to the civil rights movements, and then how those fights for racial and social justice morphed into diversity discourses in organizations. It really helped me think about what exactly is happening with those strategies of diversity, those practices of diversity in the arts. It was not just in the case of what I observed in my research, but also finding out about what is happening in other places.
And that also made me look into what other examples that I can show. Because I already have analyzed MoMA and other legacy organizations in-depth and have seen the limitations of what “diversity” versus a holistic racial and social justice approach does in those spaces. Then I began to consider examples of where people are centering racial and social justice in their organizations from the ground up instead of trying to do these remedial or reform strategies that are not comprehensive enough to address inequality.
So then I started looking at the cultural landscape in New York in particular, trying to find good examples that I could bring to class so that we could see the trajectory of this diversity discourses and practices from the 20th century to now, and what’s happening in the arts. This helped me think about recurring issues with those discourses and how people are reacting. How are people trying to represent art practitioners, cultural workers, and artists, how are they engaging with those issues to try to build a new landscape?
What’s been great is that before I came to ARAD, I have been thinking about my next research project, and I wanted to integrate these interests into my teaching. I think the program has been very supportive of that. For instance, I taught the class on Afrofuturist and Indigenous filmmaking, and those films we watched in class are films that I have already watched or that I am interested in, which was a treat. But the class was also about aligning with a different way of thinking about the world, a different epistemology, and sitting in a classroom with a group of students who want to do that exercise of interpreting the world from a different perspective was amazing.
In this past year, I have been thinking about who I am as a scholar, and what am I standing for in terms of the political implications of creating knowledge and reproducing knowledge. I feel it’s been an opportunity to be in a program like ARAD that is allowing me to grow in that direction. During my Ph.D., my dissertation committee was extremely supportive; but, I could not skip the fact that I was being disciplined into something, I was being disciplined into sociology. I was being taught to think in a particular way about what is sociology as a discipline. And so I had to follow, design a project, and do things in a way that adhered to that epistemology. I did a comparative study of organizations and I followed a way of thinking because I was in a disciplinary PhD program. Once I finished my Ph.D., I didn’t necessarily have to be so concerned with fitting into sociology as a discipline. I am embracing my interdisciplinary training as a central aspect of my scholarship and the way I understand the world.
You spoke a lot about “Diversity in the Arts” and “UnLearning Cinema through Indigenous and Afrofuturist Lenses,” what about the “Curatorial Praxis” course you taught last semester, how did it go?
The class went well and I was able to share a lot of scholarship on curatorial practice. We talked about the historical role of the curator in arts organizations, but also a lot of different debates that are happening or that took place in the early 2000s and how they continue now. We discussed the works of emblematic curators, and we paired the conversations that we were having in class with visits to curators. This was great because we could talk about the scholarship and the theories in the abstract, but then we could go and see and ask questions to the people who the theories are talking about and not only talk to them but see the work they’re doing in exhibition spaces. I think it was a successful class.The first thing I said in this class is that I am not gonna teach you how to curate, there’s a whole Ph.D. in curatorial studies. We analyzed curatorial discourses and how people talk about curators so we can understand their practice better.
In this new semester, what are you most looking forward to?
I’m excited to have Dr. Gregory-Kameka back teaching full-time. The three of us, with Dr. Lena, have been working together, and I think it’s gonna be fun to just have the three of us teaching together.
The other thing is that in the Fall, I will become the Program Director as Dr. Lena steps down. I am excited to get to learn more about the administrative side. This includes learning more about how Teachers College works as an institution and working closely with Grace. I am excited that we are going to be collaborating much more closely. I have a good group of people I am working with that I’ve already had a great experience the first year working with them. I know that if I have a concern or I want to propose something, I would be supported in this environment.
What do you do outside of your time at TC? Are you working on any personal projects?
Outside of TC, I have my creative practice. I love being outside, among the trees. In the winter, I snowboard. I was a snowboarding instructor a few years ago and I really enjoyed it. I practice a type of yoga called Dharma for which I spend a lot of time inverted doing headstands. I also spend time with my friends, my partner who is also in the arts, and my cat Simone. I have been in New York since 2009 and I have a good community here. I’m always scheduling some sort of outing with my friends.
What is your favorite arts organization in NYC?
I think my favorite arts organization is the Center for Arts Research and Alliances, where I took your cohort during the Cultural Data Analysis class. I think what they’ve done is amazing in terms of their approach to questioning the role of philanthropy and thinking about the limits and the influence of wealthy philanthropists. This can be challenging when the board of trustees has a certain level of power in decision-making. At CARA, people are engaged in interesting, thought-provoking conversations. The other thing I think it’s cool is their programming, which is very thoughtful and holistic.
Arts Administration 
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