Co-curators of the 2026 MFA thesis exhibition Taylor Jasper, Susan and Rob White associate curator, visual arts, at the Walker Art Center, and Egbert Vongmalaithong, ICA assistant curator, will reflect on their collaborative curatorial practice and the process of working closely with emerging artists at a pivotal moment in their careers.

Vongmalaithong is a Lao-American poet and curator interested in decentered and collective modes of education. He is the curator of Misread Unread Read Re-Read Misread Unread Re-Read (MURRMUR), a research framework and multipart exhibition series held at the ICA that expands how we think about reading, publishing, and distributing art and ideas. His most recent project at the ICA includes the group exhibition Ayida, in collaboration with Serubiri Moses, and he will be curating an upcoming exhibition on VCU alumna Diane Severin Nguyen in fall 2026.

Taylor Jasper is the Susan and Rob White Associate Curator, Visual Art at the Walker Art Center. Since joining the Walker in 2023, her curatorial projects have included This Must Be the Place (2024); Sadie Barnette: The New Eagle Creek Saloon (2024); and Kandis Williams: A Surface (2025). From 2020 to 2023, Jasper served as Curatorial Associate of Visual and Performing Arts at The Momentary. While there, she supported exhibitions including Yvette Mayorga: what a time to be (2022), Cauleen Smith: Space Station: Radiant Behind the Sun (2021), Diana Al-Hadid: Ash in the Trade Winds (2021), and Garrett Bradley: American Rhapsody (2021). Prior to the Momentary, she was a Curatorial Research Assistant at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, where she contributed to the exhibition and catalogue The Dirty South: Contemporary Art, Material Culture, and the Sonic Impulse. Jasper was born and raised in Richmond, VA, BA in Africana Studies and Art History from the College of William & Mary in 2018.