International Visitors ProgrammeInternational Visitors Programme

Alexandra Cunningham, Curator of contemporary design and Hintz Secretarial Scholar at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum and Irene Sunwoo, Chair and Curator of Architecture and Design, Art Institute of Chicago made the most of their time with visits to the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, ARCAM Architecture Centre Amsterdam, Framer Framed, International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam, OMA, Superuse Studios, BRUTUS, the Boijmans van Beuningen Depot and more. Cunningham and Sunwoo also had the opportunity to participate in the Disclosing Architecture, Rethinking Heritage conference organized by the Nieuwe Instituut, and to attend several speaker presentations on themes of authorship, innovation, authenticity and democratization of heritage. By branching out of their roles and taking part in a diverse program that allowed them to dive into both scholarly and social opportunities, they were enriched with new perspectives, ideas and projects that they aim to take back with them for further growth in their institutional work.  

Alexandra Cunningham Cameron is an internationally-recognized curator, writer and critical thinker on contemporary design. She currently sits as curator of contemporary design and Hintz Secretarial Scholar at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Formerly editor in chief of independent arts journal The Miami Rail and Creative Director of the Design Miami fairs, Cameron has organized a broad range of exhibitions, publications, and programs that examine the role of design in shaping contemporary values. Cameron has spearheaded landmark public commissions and award-winning exhibitions with artists and designers such as Willi Smith, Duro Olowu, SITE, Terrol Dew Johnson, Aranda/Lasch, Yona Friedman, Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec and Jamilah Sabur, while advancing inventive cross-disciplinary programs with collaborators such as Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, the United Nations, National Museum of African American History and Culture, and Thom Browne. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Financial Times, Vogue, PIN UP, The New Yorker, and other international publications. She edited the monograph Willi Smith: Street Couture (Rizzoli, Cooper Hewitt 2020).  

Irene Sunwoo is the John H. Bryan Chair and Curator, Architecture and Design at the Art Institute of Chicago. Sunwoo joined the Art Institute in 2021 after five years at the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, where she was Curator of the Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery and Director of Exhibitions. At Ross Gallery, Sunwoo steered an experimental and interdisciplinary exhibition program that supported and advanced new architectural practices and research. Her exhibitions include Frida Escobedo: No. 9 (2017), Eternal Gradient: Arakawa and Madeline Gins (2018), Cooking Sections: Offsetted (2019); and _Torkwase Dyson: 1919: Black Water _(2019). She was associate curator of the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial (2015). She is developing two book projects: one on the architectural educator Alvin Bovarsky and a second on the spatial experiments of Arakawa and Madeline Gins. An architectural historian, Sunwoo received a doctorate from the Princeton University School of Architecture.  

This visit was partly made possible by the financial support of the Consulate General of the Netherlands in New York.