Lillia McEnaney is a museum anthropologist and independent curator living and working in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
She is currently an assistant curator at the Museum of International Folk Art and the director of the Hands-On Curatorial Program at the Ralph T. Coe Center for the Arts. Her current curatorial projects include collaborations with the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico, the Museum of New Mexico Press, and the Navajo Nation Museum.
Lillia is the secretary of the Board of the Council for Museum Anthropology, a section of the American Anthropological Association, and also serves on the Railyard Park Conservancy’s Public Art Committee. She holds an MA from New York University and a BA from Hamilton College.
UPCOMING:
—iNgqikithi yokuPhica / Weaving Meanings: Telephone Wire Art from South Africa, assistant curator and project manager, Museum of International Folk Art, November 2024
—ALL REZ: Keyah, Hooghan, K'e, Jina I Land, Home, Kinship, Life, co-curator and project manager, Maxwell Museum of Anthropology and Axle Contemporary, June 2024
—Reflections on Movement, program manager and student project facilitator, Ralph T. Coe Center for the Arts, May 2024
—“Nothing Left for Me:” Federal Policy and the Photography of Milton Snow in Diné Bikéyah, co-curator, Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, May 2024
RECENT / SELECTED:
Exhibitions
—Horizons: Weaving Between the Lines with Diné Textiles, project manager, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology, July 2023
—in the woods…is perpetual youth, program manager and student project facilitator, Ralph T. Coe Center for the Arts, May 2023
—Down Home: Anthony Lovato, curator, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology, May 2023
—Ghhúunayúkata / To Keep Them Warm: The Alaska Native Parka, curatorial assistant, Museum of International Folk Art, May 2023
—We Were Basket Makers Before We Were Pueblo People: Pueblo Baskets in Context, assistant curator, Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, November 2022
—Here, Now and Always, co-curator, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology, July 2022
—ReVOlution: Virgil Ortiz, curator, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology, May 2022
—A Place in Clay: Kathleen Wall, curator, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology, May 2021
—The Brothers Chongo: A Tragic Comedy in Two Parts with Diego and Mateo Romero, curator, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology, April 2019
Writing
—”To Weave for One Another: Wedge Weaving, Sheepherding, and Memory,” with Kevin Aspaas (Diné), in Horizons: Weaving Between the Lines with Diné Textiles, Museum of New Mexico Press, forthcoming
—”Work in Progress with Robert King (Choctaw),” studio visit, Southwest Contemporary, October 2023
—”Encounters Past and Future: Duhon James at Hecho a Mano” (review essay), Southwest Contemporary, August 2023
—”Exhibiting an Archive of a Shadow: Southwest Reflections at Millicent Rogers” (review essay), Southwest Contemporary, January 2023
—”Evoking Empowerment,” El Palacio: The Magazine of the Museum of New Mexico, Fall 2022
—”Finding Her Place in Clay,” El Palacio: The Magazine of the Museum of New Mexico, Summer 2020