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 the Curator of Digital and Emerging Practice at the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center. His work and research focuses on how societies and culture are informed by the evolving ways in which people and communities interact with technology and the internet. He is one of the lead curators of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center's Culture Labs, which engage artists, scholars, and community leaders in collaborative presentations at experimental and nontraditional exhibition spaces. These Culture Labs include CrossLines held at the Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building in Washington, D.C. (2016); CTRL+ALT in the former site of the Pearl River Mart in New York City (2016); ʻAe Kai in the former site of the Ala Moana Foodland in Honolulu (2017); and Tē Whāinga at Silo 6 in Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand (2019). Other recent projects include Bravespace (2023), a compilation of healing music by Asian American artists; In the Future (2021), a series of public art projects in collaboration with artist Jess X. Snow that addressed the increase in anti-Asian American violence during the Covid pandemic; and Elevator Pitch (2018), an immersive sound installation in collaboration with artists Christine Sun Kim and New Orleans Airlift, permanently exhibited at the Music Box Village in New Orleans. Adriel was part of the curatorial team for Sightlines: Chinatown and Beyond (2024-25) at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Adriel's scholarly research focuses on the friction between traditional museum practices and the shifting ways in which communities interact with institutions. His most recent research is an investigation of how colonial art about the Pacific Islands affects how AI visually interprets and represents communities from the region.