Christina L. De León is Cooper Hewitt’s acting deputy director of curatorial and inaugural associate curator of Latino design. Since 2017, she has grown the museum’s collection of U.S. Latino and Latin American design, while also organizing exhibitions, public programs and bilingual digital content. In 2021, De León produced the museum’s first feature-length documentary film, Mud Frontier: Architecture at the Borderlands, which has screened widely internationally. At Cooper Hewitt, she has collaborated with artists on exhibitions such as Rebeca Méndez Selects and Nature by Design: Cochineal. She has also acquired works for the permanent collection by Tanya Aguiñiga, Daniela Villegas, Olga de Amaral and Edgardo Giménez, among others. From 2010 to 2016, De León was associate curator at Americas Society where she organized exhibitions and publications focused on modern and contemporary Latin American art.
Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial is the seventh edition in the series, how is this iteration different?
A big and exciting change from previous triennials is that we are collaborating with another Smithsonian unit. Michelle Joan Wilkinson, curator of architecture and design at National Museum of African American History and Culture, is co-curator on this project along with myself and Alexandra Cunningham-Cameron. Another difference is that while previous triennials have focused on the specific projects of 50 or 60 participants, this triennial is focused on showcasing site-specific installations commissioned for this exhibition. Which means that every project you see is on view for the first time. This is unique for us because previous triennials have been reflective of contemporary design of the previous three years. This exhibition really focused on giving designers, architects, and artists the opportunity to make something universal, expansive, new, and ambitious.
Given the show’s theme of home, how has residing in the Carnegie mansion influenced the exhibition?
Something continually important to us is that Cooper Hewitt is located in the former Carnegie mansion and the eccentricities of residing in this exceptional historical building present unique challenges for us as curators. Notably, the rooms are smaller, so we often cover the historic architecture to make it suitable for our needs. But in this show, we wanted the mansion to have an opportunity to shine through not just as a museum but as a former home. So you’ll see the rooms very much transformed and experience the architecture and design in a way that hasn’t been revealed before. That’s probably one of the most surprising things about the installation of the show in general. That you’ll be seeing our home in a brand new light…literally.
What do you hope visitors experience when they visit the Triennial?
The show presents a diverse set of perspectives and while some of the perspectives might not be the same as your own, we hope there will be moments or parts that will still resonate with you after you leave the museum. I hope you are challenged, engaged, fascinated, and intrigued by what is being presented to you with the various notions of home and learn a little more about your neighbor next door or across the country. You’ll understand what it means to make your home in the United States a little bit more.
How has organizing this exhibition challenged you as a curator?
When we were first planning the triennial, we wanted to do something new and different and our decision to take over the mansion with site specific installations became an immense undertaking for us. As curators, thinking about this exhibition in a cohesive way with 25 different perspectives, ideas, and aesthetics is essentially organizing nearly 25 exhibitions into one triennial. It’s a decision that has proven taxing not just on the curatorial team but the entire museum. In fact, something that is very special about this show is that there is not one person who hasn’t touched this show in one way. Everyone in the museum wanted to have a part in this show and I think that’s a unique position for us. I say all of this to underline how ambitious this project is and, although it’s been hard, it’s also one of the most rewarding experiences in my career as a curator.
With all the hard work that’s gone into bringing this exhibition to reality, any one moment stand out during installation?
So many! But one in particular that I’ll never forget is preparing Heather Dewey-Hagborg’s cyborg installation which includes over 6,000 vials of fake blood. Members of our staff from all different departments filled these vials for 2 weeks. It really has been a team lift.
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