Jessica Cooley

As the ACLS Emerging Voices Fellow at the University of Minnesota’s Liberal Arts Engagement Hub, Jessica A. Cooley is working with the HUB’s Disability Justice residency to curate an online and physical exhibition exploring disability art and culture in the state of Minnesota. 

Cooley is a scholar-curator working at the intersection of curatorial and museum studies, disability studies and crip theory, and Modern and contemporary art. She holds a PhD in art history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her first book project centers on what she calls “crip materiality” and will forward a new methodology to address how ableism affects the understanding and valuation of the very fibers of art materials within curatorial and conservation discourses. Cooley was a guest curator for the Ford Foundation Art Gallery from 2020-2022, where she co-curating a multi-year online and in-person exhibition project titled "INDISPOSABLE.” From 2006–2010, Cooley served as assistant curator at Davidson College’s Van Every/Smith Galleries, where she curated numerous exhibitions, including RE/FORMATIONS: Disability, Women, and Sculpture (2009) and STARING (2009).