Francesca Du Brock
AS THE CHIEF CURATOR at the Anchorage Museum in Alaska, Francesca Du Brock deploys a curatorial practice that emphasizes community engagement, collaboration, and a commitment to the ecology and history of Alaska and the surrounding region. Her recent projects include “How to Survive” (2023–25), exploring themes of resilience and reciprocity in the face of climate crises; “Black Lives in Alaska: Journey, Justice, Joy” (2021–22); and “Extra Tough: Women of the North” (2020–21). In February, she was announced as the recipient of the 2025 Marica Vilcek Prize in Art History, a $100,000 award that honors leaders in the curatorial field. Her latest exhibition, “Dog Show,” featuring artworks, archival images, and other objects and ephemera that illustrate the pivotal role of dog-human relationships on the culture of the region, opens May 2.
HOW WOULD YOU DEFINE CURATING?
I think of curators fundamentally as connectors—bridge-builders, matchmakers, and facilitators. Our work is about asking questions and creating the conditions for various people—artists, audiences, and communities—to come together in ways that feel enlivening and meaningful, and that hopefully foster deeper and continuing exchange.
WHAT WAS THE LAST SHOW YOU TRAVELED TO SEE?
I just returned from the Hawai‘i Triennial, “Aloha Nō,” curated by Wassan Al-Khudhairi, Binna Choi, and Noelle M.K.Y. Kahanu. It was exciting to see thematic resonances across our Pacific region, including sovereignty, place-based knowledge, reciprocity, and care for lands, waters, and people.
WHAT UPCOMING EXHIBITION (BESIDES YOURS) ARE YOU MOST EXCITED ABOUT?
I’m hoping I’ll make it to England to see the exhibition “A World of Water” at the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich, organized by my friend John Kenneth Paranada, the institution’s Curator of Art and Climate Change. I appreciate how Ken marries art with climate science, history, and local stories, as well as his contagious optimism about the role of culture in confronting the climate crisis.
WHAT IS ONE SHOW THAT HAD A BIG INFLUENCE ON YOU?
I’m constantly influenced and inspired by the work of others, though being based in Alaska means I probably see fewer shows than curators in other parts of the world. I’m interested in museums as spaces for cultivating perceptual knowledge guided by listening, feeling, moving, sensing, etc. To that end, I found Julien Creuzet’s installation at the 2024 Venice Biennale, curated by Céline Kopp and Cindy Sissokho, very affecting for the way it invited a multisensory exploration of the space and encouraged that kind of deeply intuitive understanding. I was also very moved by “Salmon Culture” (2023–24)here at the Anchorage Museum, curated by Nadia Jackinsky-Sethi and a cohort of Alaska Native artists and activists. The exhibition beautifully manifested relationships between Alaska Native people and salmon through an emphasis on materiality, including parkas, mittens, boots, baskets, and artworks made from fish skin. It showed how you can’t separate people from the environment—we are interconnected and interdependent.
WHAT IS THE BEST PIECE OF CRITICISM YOU’VE READ RECENTLY?
I loved Aruna D’Souza’s Imperfect Solidarities (Floating Opera Press, 2024),which argues that empathy is an insufficient framework for nurturing common concern and political allyship with those we may never deeply know or even understand. She challenges us to act instead from a more difficult “obligation to care,” whether or not we empathize. This feels increasingly urgent at a moment when basic human and environmental rights are being questioned and curtailed in the United States. I also enjoy reading Siddhartha Mitter in the New York Times for his detailed and human-centered reporting on artists—especially those using art as a medium for critical thinking and social change.
IS THERE A PARTICULAR IDEA THAT IS INSPIRING YOUR WORK NOW?
I’m interested in experimental ways of shifting museum practice—how we create exhibitions, how we think about and apply sustainability principles to our work, and how we measure success. Arts institutions have the potential to envision alternatives to dominant modes of production and consumption, yet we so often seem to fall into the same trap of pernicious perfectionism and ever-accelerating growth and content creation.
“How to Survive” was an attempt to tackle some of these issues. It considered how the museum itself could demonstrate care by actively evaluating our own processes and approaches. Many large installations were realized via long-distance collaboration with artists and fabricated in Anchorage using local and repurposed components. We also experimented with paper-based and non-PVC materials for exhibition text and graphics, extended the run time, and communicated more transparently with visitors and collaborators about our process—both the successes and the challenges. It was thrilling to work on a project with so many unknowns and to prioritize the process over the final product.
WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE MOST IMPORTANT CONVERSATION HAPPENING NOW WITHIN THE CURATORIAL FIELD OR IN THE ARTS MORE BROADLY?
As I mentioned above, I think reevaluating our priorities and ideas around success feels so critical right now. This applies to how we engage with audiences, creatives, communities, and the environment. I’m inspired by the work Candice Hopkins is leading at Forge Project, on Stockbridge-Munsee land in upstate New York. Forge measures its success by the health of the land; I love that this metric is seemingly simple yet contains many possibilities for reimagining how we value cultural production.
WHAT DO YOU WISH PEOPLE BETTER UNDERSTOOD ABOUT CURATING?
This question makes me laugh because when young people ask to shadow me, I am forced to reveal that so much of my job is emailing, spreadsheets, and project management. I’m pretty sure they don’t want to sit beside me hunched over a laptop all day. It’s an office job. But the work is also about service—to artists, to colleagues, to others’ ideas. That part I love.
WHAT PIECE OF ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO AN ASPIRING CURATOR?
I would offer that, in my experience, there is no direct path, no specific degree that will guarantee success in this field. Don’t wait for someone to validate you with a fancy job offer—seek out opportunities to make shows with friends or gain experience through adjacent or overlapping fields. Stay curious and open-minded. And remember that the world is small: treat people with kindness and respect. As you get older, more and more of your peers will be in a position to help you out.
WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING A CURATOR CAN DO FOR AN ARTIST?
I believe curators should elevate the work of their local artistic communities and connect them to national/international practitioners and conversations. Expand access to opportunities for experimentation and research without the expectation of an exhibition or final project. Meet artists where they are: For folks off the road system in Alaska, I try to find virtual opportunities for collaboration that don’t require expensive travel to Anchorage. When artists and curators have a dynamic synergy, they ask each other good questions that expand thinking in both directions.
