Lillia McEnaney is a museum anthropologist and independent curator living and working in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Lillia has worked with museums and cultural organizations for more than a decade. With a focus on partnering with artists and communities in the American Southwest, she specializes in developing and facilitating community-centered exhibitions and programs.
Her current curatorial projects include collaborations with the Museum of International Folk Art, the School for Advanced Research’s Indian Arts Research Center, the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico, and the Navajo Nation Museum. Lillia is an adjunct instructor in Lehigh University's Department of Art, Architecture, and Design.
Currently, Lillia is the secretary of the Board of the Council for Museum Anthropology, a section of the American Anthropological Association, and serves on the Railyard Park Conservancy’s Public Art Committee. She holds an MA from New York University and a BA from Hamilton College.
SELECTED WORK:
Exhibitions
—iNgqikithi yokuPhica / Weaving Meanings: Telephone Wire Artfrom South Africa,assistant curator and project manager, Museum of International Folk Art, November 2024
—ALL REZ: Keyah, Hooghan, K'e, Jina I Land, Home, Kinship, Life,co-curator and project manager with lead curator and creative director Rapheal Begay (Diné), Maxwell Museum of Anthropology and Axle Contemporary, June 2024
—Amidst Cries from the Rubble: Art of Loss and Resilience from Ukraine, project manager, Museum of International Folk Art, June 2024
—Reflections on Movement,program director and student project facilitator, Ralph T. Coe Center for the Arts, May 2024
—“Nothing Left for Me:”Federal Policy and the Photography of Milton Snow in Diné Bikéyah, co-curator with Dr. Jennifer Denetdale (Diné), Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, May 2024 [Feature stories in Pasatiempo, NPR-KUNM, and The Santa Fe Reporter]
—Horizons: Weaving Between the Lines with Diné Textiles, project manager with co-curators Dr. Hadley Jensen and Rapheal Begay (Diné), Museum of Indian Arts and Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology, July 2023
—in the woods…is perpetual youth, program director and student project facilitator, Ralph T. Coe Center for the Arts, May 2023
—Down Home: Anthony Lovato,curator, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology, May 2023
—Ghhúunayúkata / To Keep Them Warm: The Alaska Native Parka,curatorial assistant, Museum of International Folk Art, May 2023
—We Were Basket Makers Before We Were Pueblo People: Pueblo Baskets in Context, assistant curator, Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, November 2022
—Here, Now and Always, co-curator, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology, July 2022
—ReVOlution: Virgil Ortiz, curator, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology, May 2022
—A Place in Clay: Kathleen Wall, curator, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology, May 2021
—Diego Romero vs. the End of Art, curatorial assistant, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology, October 2019
—The Brothers Chongo: A Tragic Comedy in Two Parts with Diego and Mateo Romero, curator, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology, April 2019
Writing& Editing
—The Photographs of Milton Snow and the Making of the Modern Navajo Nation, 1937-1959, co-editor, with lead editor Dr. Jennifer Denetdale (Diné), University of New Mexico Press, forthcoming
—”Virgil Ortiz: Historical Memory, Indigenous Futurisms, and the Art of Storytelling in 2180,” Southwest Contemporary, Fall 2024
—”To Weave for One Another: Wedge Weaving, Sheepherding, and Memory,” with Kevin Aspaas (Diné), in Horizons: Weaving Between the Lines with Diné Textiles, Museum of New Mexico Press, 2024
—”Work in Progress with Robert King (Choctaw),” studio visit, Southwest Contemporary, October 2023
—”Encounters Past and Future: Duhon James at Hecho a Mano” (review essay), Southwest Contemporary, August 2023
—”Exhibiting an Archive of a Shadow: Southwest Reflections at Millicent Rogers” (review essay), Southwest Contemporary, January 2023
—”Evoking Empowerment,” El Palacio: The Magazine of the Museum of New Mexico, Fall 2022
—Collaboration, Multivocality, and Authority, El Palacio: The Magazine of the Museum of New Mexico, Spring 2021
—”Finding Her Place in Clay,” El Palacio: The Magazine of the Museum of New Mexico, Summer 2020