Veronica Passalacqua is curator at the C.N. Gorman Museum, Department of Native American Studies, University of California, Davis. For more than 30 years, the C.N. Gorman Museum has been dedicated to the creative expressions of Native American and artists of diverse cultures and histories. The Museum's reputation of artistic excellence is proven by its company of exhibiting artists, including some of the most established Native artists, as well as the next generation of emerging Indigenous artists.
As a writer, curator and scholar of Native North American art for the past 15 years, Passalacqua earned her Bachelor's degree from Harvard University and her Master's degree in museum studies from Oxford University. She has submitted her Doctorate in Museum Studies from Oxford University, where her thesis examines political lens-based artworks by contemporary Native North American artists.
Most recently, Passalacqua facilitated the donation/repatriation of a significant private Lakota collection of artifacts to the Buechel Memorial Lakota Museum, Pine Ridge Reservation. Previous curatorial work includes exhibitions at the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford; the Navajo Nation Museum, Window Rock; and the Barbican Art Gallery, London. As an independent scholar, she has worked at Christie's Auction House, the British Museum, Barbican Art Gallery and consulted for Canadian High Commission.
Passalacqua is guest curating an exhibition at the Great Plains Art Museum at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln open January 4 through March 27, 2011. The exhibition will feature photographs by Seminole photographer Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie and items from the Great Plains Art Museum's permanent collection.