Dr. Ileana L. Selejan is Lecturer in Art History, Culture and Society. A member of the PhotoDemos research collective, she is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Anthropology at University College London, where she was previously Research Associate and contributor to the European Research Council (ERC) funded project, ‘Citizens of Photography: The Camera and the Political Imagination’. Other previous appointments include: Research Fellow with the Decolonising Arts Institute and Associate Lecturer at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. As the Linda Wyatt Gruber ’66 Curatorial Fellow in Photography at The Davis Museum at Wellesley College, she curated the exhibition ‘Charlotte Brooks at LOOK: 1951-1971,’ amongst others. She received her PhD in Art History from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and was granted the 2012–13 Joan and Stanford Alexander Award from the Museum of Fine Arts Houston for her research in Nicaragua. She has held research and teaching positions at various institutions including the Photography and Imaging Department at Tisch School of the Arts and the Art History Department at New York University, Parsons School of Design in New York, and the Fine Arts Department at West University, Timisoara, Romania. Dr. Selejan is the co-curator of the 2024 edition of BredaPhoto biennial.
Her work has been published in edited volumes and international peer-reviewed journals including Visual Studies, photographies, Photography & Culture, The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology, Membrana, as well as in periodicals such as Aperture magazine, The Common literary magazine and Trigger journal. Her co-edited volume with Christopher Pinney and PhotoDemos collective, ‘Citizens of Photography: The Camera and the Political Imagination’ was published by Duke University Press in September 2023. She has presented her research and lectured at institutions as diverse as the Alternative Art School, Yale School of Art, the Tbilisi Photo Festival, the Museo Reina Sofia and The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, the Paul Mellon Centre, TATE, UCL, the Institute of Latin American Studies at the University of London, and The Photographers Gallery. She has been a regular interviewee for the BBC World Service concerning Nicaraguan current affairs, and has been invited to collaborate with public and non-profit photography organisations, such as Magnum Photos. In addition to her academic and curatorial work, Dr. Selejan has been a contributing member of the experimental art and technology collective kinema ikon since 2007.
