The Curators Behind This Year’s Public Art Highlights

In partnership with Artsy, UAP continues its annual celebration of the most inspiring works in public art. The 2025 edition features a diverse panel of contributing curators: Salamishah Tillet, Amanda Abi Khalil, Pojai Akratanakul, Deborah McCormick, Natasha Smith, and Danielle Robson.

These curators will spotlight projects that push boundaries, spark dialogue, and reflect the latest trends shaping the future of public art.

Drawing on expertise across urban spaces, cultural movements, and pressing social issues, this year's curators ensure that 2025's highlights capture the spirit of innovation and the diversity of voices defining the field today.

Salamishah Tillet is the Distinguished Professor of Africana Studies and Creative Writing at Rutgers University, Newark, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning contributing critic-at-large at The New York Times. She is the author of “Sites of Slavery: Citizenship and Racial Democracy in the Post-Civil Rights Imagination” and “In Search of the Color Purple: The Story of an American Masterpiece,” and currently completing the book, “All The Rage: Nina Simone and The World She Made.” Tillet recently received the 2025 Emerson Collective Fellowship for leaders taking on a hyperlocal project to help their community come together and solve complex problems and 2025 recipient of The Gordon Parks Foundation’s Genevieve Young Fellowship in Writing. Her writing has also appeared Aperture, The Atlantic, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, The Nation, The New York Review of Books, and Time and work has been supported by the Carnegie Foundation, the Lindback Foundation, the Whiting Foundation, the Schomburg Center for Scholars-in-Residence, the Institute for Citizens and Scholars, and the Mellon Foundation. 

She received her Bachelor of Arts in English and African American Studies and graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania, her Master of Art in Teaching in English from Brown University, and her Masters of Art in English and her Ph.D. in American Studies from Harvard University. She holds an honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts from Moore College of Art and Design. In 2003, she and her sister, Scheherazade Tillet, founded A Long Walk Home, an arts organization that empowers young people to end violence against girls and women.

Amanda Abi Khalil is an independent art worker based between Beirut, Paris and Rio de Janeiro whose work focuses on socially engaged practices and public art. She is the founder and director of TAP (Temporary Art Platform), a non-profit that aims to shift artistic and curatorial discourse towards social and contextual concerns through residencies, research projects, and public art commissions.

She holds a Master 1 in Sociology and Anthropology from Paris 7 – Denis Diderot University, and a Master’s degree in Aesthetics, Arts and Culture, with a specialization in Cultural Projects for Public Spaces.

Her recent curated projects include Undertow, a touring exhibition around the Mediterranean sea with the Art Explora Festival co-curated with Danielle Makhoul, ArtParis Art Fair 2023, Paço Imperial, Rio de Janeiro, www.covideo19.art; Living Room (UIT): Use it Together at ISCP, New York; Chou Hayda, an audio-guide with Annabel Daou and the people of Beirut for the National Museum of Beirut; Art at AUBMC, public art commissions for the new Medical Center ; When all seemingly stands still, GreyNoise, Dubai; Kurz / Dust, a collective exhibition co-curated with Anna Ptak at the CCA Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw; Simple past, perfect futures; images in countershot at the Centquatre, Paris; Pippera, pipperoo, pipperum at Meinblau in Berlin amongst others. 

She held teaching positions at the American University of Beirut (AUB) the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts (ALBA) and the Saint Joseph University (USJ) in Beirut and curated exhibitions, public art commissions and other social practice related formats in and with International art institutions. Previously she was the curator of the Hangar Umam D&R, Beirut an independent art space focusing on archive-based practices. 

In 2016 she was nominated for ICI’s independent curatorial vision award and was a recipient of the Soros Art Fellowship (Soros Art Foundation) in 2019.  

Her curatorial focus revolves around social practice, public art and forms of exhibition making in relation to themes of hospitality, radical care and migrations in and between contexts such as the Middle-East, North Africa and Latin America.

Pojai Akratanakul is a Bangkok-based curator and cultural producer. She was Co-curator of Bangkok Art Biennale 2024: Nurture Gaia; and also Curatorial Section Lead and Assistant Curator for the previous two editions of the biennale (2020, 2022), as well as The Spirits of Maritime Crossing, a collateral event to the 60th La Biennale di Venezia. Before her extensive work with the biennale, she built a foundation of experience in exhibitions and publications in both Bangkok and New York City, and also managed The Petch Osathanugrah Collection.

Selected recent curatorial projects include Area 721,346 (2023) and Footnotes on Institution (2019), both at Gallery VER. As a member of the collective Charoen Contemporaries, she also co-curated PostScripts, a site-responsive public art project (2018), and co-juried Early Years Project 4: Praxis Makes Perfect at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (2019).

Forthcoming projects include solo exhibitions with artists Martin Constable (Bangkok University Gallery) and Naraphat Sakarthornsap (SAC Gallery). Her work and research focus on institutional critique and development, and the artist career, particularly within Southeast Asia.

Akratanakul holds an MA in Visual Arts Administration (Curatorial Concentration) from New York University. She is on the 2025 Acquisition Committee of OCAC Thailand’s Ministry of Culture, and is currently Project & Research Manager of the Timor-Leste Pavilion at the 61st La Biennale di Venezia.

Deborah McCormick believes that public art is the keystone to a vibrant, thriving city. With 27 years’ experience bringing art into public spaces, Deborah is an industry leader and visionary with expertise in public and private partnership models, project delivery, arts management, public arts policy, strategic business planning and public and international relations.

Well-known for her work creating and moulding SCAPE Public Art into a respected and recognisable organisation on the international stage, Deborah is passionate about taking art into context outside of gallery spaces, where people can get exposure to public art. Deborah brings her considerable experience in Aotearoa’s arts and cultural landscape to Deborah McCormick Consulting (DMC) Limited: a new company formed working with Urban Art Projects (UAP) to bring together a range of opportunities and partnerships in New Zealand’s public art sector.

Beginning her career with degrees in Fine Arts and Art History, and postgraduate studies in Art Curatorship and Museum Studies (University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand), Natasha worked in the commercial and public arts sectors within the Asia Pacific region prior to joining UAP in 2009.

Highly skilled in curating art for the public realm, having developed art master plans and strategies, conducted creative placemaking and delivered art programs for commercial developments, Natasha has master-planned art for cities and community spaces across Australia, the Middle East, Asia, the Americas and Europe.

Natasha leads the UAP curatorial team globally, with teams located in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney, Australia, Shanghai, China, and New York in the United States. Natasha has worked with international curatorial collaborators on projects including: Nicholas Baume, Director and Chief Curator, Public Art Fund, New York; Mona Khazindar, previous Director General of L’Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris; Chris Saines, Director of the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane; Franchesca Cubillo Executive Director, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts with the Australia Council; and Aaron Seeto, Deputy Director at the Hirshhorn Museum.

Natasha has worked closely with leading edge contemporary artists and designers from around the globe including but not limited to: Jeppe Hein; Ugo Rondinone; Arne Quinze; Katharina Grosse; Timo Nasseri; Michael Lin; Lindy Lee; Fredrikson Stallard; Brook Andrew; Reko Rennie; Judy Watson; and Ruben Patterson. Natasha is Chair of the Board of Outer Space, a Brisbane-based not-for-profit, supporting artists and arts workers to ambitiously develop their practice.  

Danielle Robson is Principal | Senior Curator at UAP. She is responsible for curatorial leadership across a range of projects in Australia and globally, as well as managing UAP’s Australia Curatorial Team across Syndey, Melbourne and Brisbane. Robson has 20 years of experience working within arts institutions, companies and independently to connect artists and designers with audiences and organisations. Robson has previously held roles as Director | Public Art Curator at curatorial consultancy Soda Arts, Co-Founder | Director of arts consultancy company, ArtsPeople, and Creative Program Manager at the Australian Design Centre. She is also a former Board Member of SafARI Initiatives. Robson holds a Master of Curating & Cultural Leadership and a Bachelor of Law and Media. She is currently a PhD Candidate in Contemporary Cultural Practice & Public Art at UNSW Art & Design.

Missed last year’s highlights? You can check it out here, and if you want to purchase the book please visit our shop.