Great Hall Exhibition Series Spring 2025

Vyjayanthi V. Rao is an anthropologist, writer, artist and curator, currently teaching at the Yale School of Architecture.  Her work focuses on the built environment and urbanism in India and the United States. She has published extensively on these subjects and currently serves as an Editor in Chief of the journal Public Culture (Duke University Press).  Curatorial projects include the exhibition Multiplicity as part of the Lisbon Architecture Triennale (2022) and Seeking Refuge and Making Home at the Center for Architecture in New York (2023).  She has participated as an artist in the Kochi Biennale (2016), the Venice Architecture Biennale (2021), the Chicago Architecture Biennale (2023) and in the Berlinale Film Festival (2025).  Her current projects include Beneath The Placid Lake, a film installation and lecture performance developed in collaboration with filmmaker Kush Badhwar.

Lisa Conte is Assistant Professor of Paper Conservation and Co-Chair at the Conservation Center of the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. She holds an M.A. in Art History and an Advanced Certificate in the Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works from the Institute, and a B.A. in English and Studio Art from William Smith College. Prior to her faculty appointment, she served as Head of Conservation at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum and held positions at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Scott Gerson Conservation, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Approaching conservation as a site of critical inquiry into material change, artistic process, and the ways objects bear evidence of their histories and use, her recent work explores the material lives of paper—its roles as artistic medium, documentary record, and material that circulates across personal, institutional, and bureaucratic contexts.

Rose Salane (b.1992, New York, USA) works with accumulated sets of objects from individuals, auctions, and institutions, exploring memory and reflecting on life in urban environments. Salane completed her MA in Urban Planning at Bernard & Anne Spitzer School of Architecture, CUNY in 2020 and her BFA at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in 2014. Salane’s work is exhibited internationally and solo presentations of her work have been held at: The Athenaeum at University of Georgia, Athens (2024); Tank, Shanghai, China (2024); and Carlos/Ishikawa, London, UK (2023). Her work has also been included in group exhibitions at The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MI (2025); Mass MoCA, Massachusetts, MA (2024); The Whitney Biennial, Quiet as It’s Kept, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York NY (2022) and The New Museum Triennial, Soft Water Hard Stone, New Museum, New York NY (2021). Salane has held residential fellowships at The Villa Medici in Rome, Italy, (2023) and Pompeii Commitment, Archeologie Matters, Pompeii, Italy (2022). Her work is held in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum of Art, and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.