Announcing the 2026 Museums Next Generation US Laureates

Launched in 2023, Museums Next Generation offers a unique behind-the-scenes experience of the museum world, connecting emerging leaders from both countries with groundbreaking institutions and visionary professionals. Museums Next Generation is a transatlantic program designed to accelerate professional development and foster long-term collaboration between French and American curators.

This year’s itinerary includes in-depth visits to major cultural landmarks in Paris, followed by an extended stay in the Southwest of France, along the Atlantic coast. The cohort will notably travel to Bordeaux and Bayonne, offering a unique perspective on the region’s vibrant cultural landscape, alongside many other highlights. 

Throughout their journey, participants will dive into the richness and complexity of the French museum ecosystem, engaging with directors, curators, and cultural leaders tackling the key issues shaping museums today. 

Stay tuned as we follow their journey and share insights from both sides of the Atlantic!

From top to bottom, right to left: Evan Garza (©Gillian Heck), Donna Honarpisheh, Ramey Mize, Steven Lewis, Jamie Kwan, Megan Clare Considine (©Ally Schmaling), Karen Cheung.

The 2026 US Cohort

Evan Garza is a writer, Fulbrighter, and curator at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts. They previously held curatorial and leadership roles at the Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University, the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin, and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Garza was cofounder of Fire Island Artist Residency (FIAR), a New York nonprofit and the first residency program in the world exclusively for LGBTQIA2S+ artists. They earned their M.A. from the Williams Graduate Program in the History of Art at the Clark Art Institute.

Donna Honarpisheh is Associate Curator of Art and Research at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, where she curates global exhibitions in modern and contemporary art that expand the definition of American art through diasporic and transnational perspectives. Notable exhibitions include Manoucher Yektai: The Stranger and the Tree, the artist’s largest institutional exhibition to date, bringing together thirty works; Huguette Caland: Outside the Line, the artist’s first U.S. solo museum exhibition; and Ahmed Morsi in New York: Elegy of the Sea; as well as Spirit-Matter, a thematic exhibition of artists who combine material experimentation with global spirit cosmologies. She is the writer and host of ICA Miami’s award-winning podcast, Tomorrow is the Problem, which addresses pressing issues in art and culture. She has also curated independent projects, including Lorraine O’Grady: Miscegenated Family Album at Georgetown University’s de la Cruz Galleries; Portals, featuring Aiza Ahmed, Shyama Golden, and Aryana Minai at MOCA Arlington; and Maximal Miniatures at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC. In addition to her curatorial work, Honarpisheh is a scholar trained in Comparative Literature and Critical Theory. She earned her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, and has taught undergraduate courses in global modernisms, postcolonial studies, and art history at Georgetown University, Fordham University, Sarah Lawrence College, and UC Berkeley. Recent publications include the essay “Undared Forms” for Felipe Baeza’s exhibition catalogue (The Print Center, New York), and “Wassef Boutros-Ghali: The Light That Carries” in Wassef Boutros-Ghali: Catalogue Raisonné (Skira), among other museum catalogues and peer-reviewed publications. She was awarded the 2025 Vilcek Prize for Curatorial Work.

Ramey Mize is the Susan G. Detweiler Associate Curator of American Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. From 2022 to 2026, she was the Associate Curator of American art at the Portland Museum of Art in Maine. She specializes in art of the Americas from the nineteenth century to the present day, with a focus on cultural exchange, expressions of place, and intersections between Indigenous and settler art. Her curatorial practice is dedicated to expanding and reimagining the field, notably through the reinstallation project Passages in American Art (2023) and the award-winning, nationally touring exhibition and publication Jeremy Frey: Woven (2024).

Steven Lewis is Curator of Music and Performing Arts at the National Museum of African American History and Culture. He previously served as the founding Curator of the National Museum of African American Music. He holds a B.A. in jazz studies from Florida State University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Critical and Comparative Studies in Music from the University of Virginia. His research interests include jazz history, 19th century African American music, African American intellectual history, and the material culture of music.

Jamie Kwan is the Assistant Curator of Drawings, Prints, & Graphic Design at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Previously, she was an assistant curator at the Wende Museum in Culver City, where she organized the exhibition (De)Constructing Ideology: the Cultural Revolution and Beyond.  She has held positions at the Getty Research Institute, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Morgan Library, and the Huntington Library and has taught at UC Riverside and the Cooper Union. She received her B.A. from Stanford and her Ph.D. from Princeton University, where she studied Northern Renaissance and Baroque art history with a focus on France. 

Meghan Clare Considine is a curator and writer whose projects engage experimental performance, time-based media, and the ways artistic practice shapes political imaginaries. Currently Curatorial Assistant at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, she has been a key contributor to exhibitions and publications with Lucy Raven, Portia Zvavahera, and Boston’s African American Master Artists-in-Residence Program, among others. Previously, she held positions at MASS MoCA, where she organized Amy Podmore: Audience (2024) and to see oneself at a distance (2023), and the Weisman Art Museum. She holds an MA from the Williams College and Clark Art Institute Graduate Program in the History of Art and a BA in Art History and Performance Studies from Northwestern University.

Karen Cheung is a curator and writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She currently serves as Interim Assistant Curator of Media, Technology, and Culture at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, where she curates exhibitions and live programs focused on time-based media and works on expanding the museum’s collection of media artworks. She has recently organized Alexandra Pirci: Re-collection, New Work: Samson Young (co-curated with Alison Guh), Samia Halaby: Kinetic Paintings, and New Work: Raven Chacon. She has presented at public lectures and symposiums organized by Mori Art Museum, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Asia Society, among other venues. Select writings have been published in MARCH Journal of Art and Strategy, Voices in Contemporary Art Journal, Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions, and other exhibition catalogues.

Each year, Museums Next Generation connects French and American professionals through two-week exchanges on both sides of the Atlantic.

Museums Next Generation is organized by Villa Albertine and the Embassy of France in the
United States, in partnership with Albertine Foundation, and with the generous support of an anonymous donor and of the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs. Villa Albertine also thanks the Institut National du Patrimoine, FRAME and the Center for Curatorial Leadership for their friendly support.