Ph.D. Candidate
Specialization:
Areas of Concentration: Modern and Contemporary Art of the Americas; Modern Craft; Textile and Dress; Museum History; International Expositions
Faculty Advisor: Jenni Sorkin
Committee Members: Christine Garnier, Alicia Boswell, Elissa Auther (Museum of Arts and Design, New York City)
Dissertation: "Moral Materials: Modern American Textiles, Consumer Culture and the Value of Craft"
M.A. Thesis: "Staging a Modern Nation: The Art and Architecture of the Peruvian Pavilion at the 1939/40 New York World’s Fair" (Hunter College, City University of New York, 2019)
Bio:
Alida R. Jekabson is a fifth-year Ph.D. Candidate in the History of Art & Architecture at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). She holds an MA in Art History and a Certificate of Advanced Curatorial Studies from Hunter College, City University of New York, and a BA in History of Art from Bryn Mawr College. Her dissertation focuses on handmade textiles in American consumer spaces, including world’s fairs and department stores during the twentieth century, and the role of these goods in promoting humanitarian, political and social causes.
Jekabson has held curatorial roles at Wave Hill Public Garden and Cultural Center, the Museum of Arts and Design, the Art, Design & Architecture Museum and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Jekabson's publications include contributions to exhibition catalogues and peer-reviewed journals such as Kunstlicht, react/review: a responsive journal for art and architecture, and Miradas: Journal for the Arts and Culture of the Américas and the Iberian Peninsula. She is also a contributor to the anthologies Decentering World’s Fairs: Transcultural Perspectives on Art, Fashion, and Latin America (Transcript Publishers), Craft in Extremis: Survival and Creativity in Modern War and Genocide, c. 1890–1950 (forthcoming, Manchester University Press) and Craft and War: Makers, Users, and Craft Practices Since the 19th Century (Bloomsbury), for which she also served as a co-editor.