Carmen Cebreros Urzaiz (Mexico City, 1977) is a PhD candidate in Culture and Performance, curator, researcher and educator. Her doctoral research studies models of institutions and initiatives in Mexico in which the decentralization of cultural infrastructure, the professionalization of artistic practices, and the exhibition of contemporary art are intertwined objectives. Considering distinct multi-purpose venues addressed to the exhibition, production, and education in the arts—like museums, non-profit galleries, and cultural centers—Cebreros examines the relation between these physical sites, their sustainability and functionality, and the use of these locations by local and global artistic communities. She also investigates the conditions and forms of curatorial practice in non-metropolitan contexts in Mexico.

Carmen Cebreros Urzaiz is a PhD candidate at the Culture and Performance PhD (WACD-UCLA). She holds an MA in Curating (Goldsmiths College-University of London) and a BA in Fine Arts (UNAM). She was the curatorial coordinator of the educational program for artists for the 2nd edition of the Contemporary Art Program/MACG-BBVA Bancomer (2010-2012). She curated the exhibition “The Endless Cycle of Idea and Action” (Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Museo de Arte de Ciudad Juárez, and Museo de Arte de Nogales, Sonora, 2012). She is also writer and co-editor of the catalog that accompanied this exhibition. She has taught and lectured at UCLA, the National School of Painting, Sculpture and Printmaking “La Esmeralda”, the National School of Fine Arts and the San Carlos Academy – UNAM, Baja California Autonomus University (Tijuana) and SOMA. She has designed the curricula and taught workshops for artists and cultural producers at Museo de Arte de Sonora and ISC Casa de Cultura, Hermosillo, Sonora, and Taller Tamayo, Oaxaca. From 2013 to 2105 she was part of the museum-educators team at the Hammer Museum-UCLA. In 2004 she was granted the Miguel Covarrubias Prize, for the best dissertation in museum studies with the thesis “Museos de arte. Presente y sociedad .” She has been grantee of the Fulbright-García Robles Scholarship (US-Mexico, 2012-15) and the Alßan Program (European Union, 2005-06). She is currently sponsored by Fonca’s Programa de Apoyo para Estudios en el Extranjero and the Elaine Krown Klein Scholarship (School of the Arts and Architecture-UCLA).

To see some of her recent writing visit: https://ucla.academia.edu/CarmenCebrerosUrzaizCebreros Urzaiz, Carmen. "Defining the Modern Museum:A Case Study of the Challenges of Exchange" in Museum and Curatorial Studies Review, Volume 2, Number 1, Spring 2014. p. 107-110. In http://www.macs-review.com/MACSR_Vol2_No1/09--Urzaiz_MACSR--2.1.pdf