Adriel Luis

Curator of Digital & Emerging Practice

As Curator of Digital and Emerging Practice at the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, I focus on how society and technology collide. I am particularly interested in how internet culture informs notions of identity, community, and social engagement. As a curator, I gravitate toward artists and artworks that experiment with both digital and tactile materials to reveal something new about how we see ourselves. I am currently researching how artificial intelligence is influenced by colonial art historical perspectives.

Article on Journal of Museum Education: Keeping Ourselves Collected: Culture Labs Confront the Smithsonian's Imperial Legacy

Research: Bigger Than the Internet: Museums and the Digital Colonization of the Web

Article on Open Rivers Journal: Extract: Locating Indigeneity in Immigrant Experiences

Article on National Trust's Saving Places: Serving Versus Observing Communities as Part of Preservation Practice

Lecture at Rockwell Museum: Dismantling Diversity in Museums

Article on Smithsonian Magazine: The Public Puts Great Trust in Museums, and Now It’s Time Museums Trust the Public

Geographic Focus

Background And Education

Education And Training

B.S., University of California, Davis

Professional Biography

Adriel Luis is a community organizer, artist, writer, and curator who believes that social evolution can happen in poetic ways. His life’s work is focused on the mutual thriving of artistic integrity and social vigilance. He is a part of the iLL-Literacy arts collective, which creates music and media to strengthen Black and Asian coalitions, and is creative director of Bombshelltoe, a collaborative of artists and leaders from frontline communities responding to nuclear histories. Adriel is the Curator of Digital and Emerging Practice at the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, where he advocates for equitable practices in museums and institutions. His ancestors are rooted in Toisan, China, and migrated through Hong Kong, Mexico, and the United States. Adriel was born on Ohlone land.

Adriel has curated projects in a range of venues including several museums across the Smithsonian in Washington D.C.; MoMA and Pearl River Mart in New York City; Queensland Art Gallery in Brisbane, Australia; Silo Park in Auckland, Aotearoa; Atom Bar in Buenos Aires, Argentina; and an abandoned Foodland in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi. His writing has appeared in Poetry Magazine, the Asian American Literary Review, and Smithsonian Magazine. He has spoken at the Tate Modern, Yale University, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and the China Academy of Fine Arts. His performance venues include the Brooklyn Academy of Music, SXSW, the John F. Kennedy Center, and the American University of Paris. He has a degree in human ecologies from UC Davis in Community and Regional Development and a minor in Asian American Studies.