Paulina Ascencio Fuentes | Curator and Researcher

Paulina Ascencio Fuentes is a researcher and curator from Mexico. She has a background in Philosophy and Social Sciences, and holds a MA in Curatorial Studies from CCS, Bard College, New York. She is currently the Hevey-Filling Fellow in the Department of Anthropology at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Her research interests include contesting modes of knowledge production, cultural exchanges between Mexico and the United States, and the role of museums, archives, and collections as contact zones.

Recent & Upcoming

MA Thesis

Uxmal-on-Hudson. Migrant Mutants and Fake Ruins

Exhibition: An adaptation of a historic-site museum

Hessel Museum, CCS Bard, NY

Spring 2021

Research

Paricutín: An Archive like Lapilli. A Decolonial Outline of the

Volcanic Sublime Across Smithsonian Institution Collections

Hevey-Filling Fellow in Anthropology

National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution

Fall 2021