About Julianne.
Julianne Miao is a curator, art historian, and writer based in Durham, North Carolina, where she serves as Curatorial Associate at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. Her notable projects at the Nasher include Act as if you are a curator: An AI-Generated Exhibition (2023); Modern Prophets: Art and Spirituality in America (2023); Dis/orient: Contemporary Art of the Asian Diaspora (2025); and Sherman Fleming: Unsettled (2025). She has also provided curatorial and programmatic support for numerous traveling and collection-based exhibitions at the Nasher, including Lyle Ashton Harris: Our first and last love (2023), María Magdalena Campos-Pons: Behold (2024), Cannupa Hanska Luger: Speechless (2025), and Dyani White Hawk: Listen (2026). Since joining the Nasher in 2022, Miao has contributed to the research and acquisition of more than 200 works for the museum’s permanent collection.
Previously, she has held positions at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Princeton University Art Museum; Reynolda House Museum of American Art; the Ackland Art Museum; and the North Carolina Museum of Art.
Miao is co-curator of the artist-run initiative BASEMENT Art Space, where she helped launch the inaugural artist residency program and curated exhibitions and performances including Martín Wannam: La Eterna Injusticia (2023), Katie Schlon: lovers, lovers, lovers of the land (2023), Radicle Lovers (2024), and Body Politic: 5 Years of Basement (2024). She is also a frequent visiting critic for the MFA program at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and curated the exhibition Phantom Limb: Selected works by the MFA class of 2025 at the Ackland Art Museum.
Her research centers on modern and contemporary art, digital media, the history of photography, pop culture, and the intersection of art and technology. Her curatorial practice particularly emphasizes technology, diaspora, and gender. She has extensive experience collaborating with artists working in experimental media. Miao has presented papers on these topics at academic and professional conferences, including: “Dreams of Tomorrow: Critical Reflections on an Early Experiment with ChatGPT for Curation”, College Art Conference, Digital Art History Panel (2026); “Curated by Artificial Intelligence: A Collaboration Between Humans and AI,” Miami Dade College, Miami, FL (2024); “Ghosts of an Empire: The Representation of Prophets, Spirits, and Spirituality in a Changing United States,” SECAC, New Research in Nineteenth-Century Art, Atlanta, GA (2024); and “Curated by Artificial Intelligence,” MuseumNext, London, UK (2024).
Her writing has appeared in exhibition publications, art survey publications, and online blogs and magazines for American Alliance of Museums, Ackland Art Museum, and North Carolina Museum of Art.
Press and reviews of her curatorial projects include features in the New York Times, Artnet, WUNC, and more.
Miao received her B.A. in Art History and B.B.A. in Marketing from the University of Georgia (2019) and her M.A. in Art History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2022) where her work was supported by the Weiss Urban Livability Fellowship and Joan and Robert Huntley Art History Scholarship. Miao was a 2024-2025 Professional Alliance of Curators of Color (PACC) fellow organized by the Association of Art Museum Curators.
JULIANNE MIAO 