Suzanne Seriff

Suzanne (Suzy) Seriff is an independent museum curator, academic, and public folklorist who combines experience-based teaching with museum curation and consultation, nationwide, at the intersection of traditional arts, community engagement and social justice. Seriff received her PhD from the Department of Folklore and Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin, where she currently teaches and serves as Director of a social justice internship program in Jewish Studies and a study abroad program on immigration through the arts in Oaxaca, Mexico.

She is the 2018 recipient (along with Dr. Marsha Bol) of the Michael M. Ames Award for Innovation in Museums from the American Council for Museum Anthropology, which honors her work, from 2010-2017, as Founding Director of the Gallery of Conscience, an experimental exhibition lab at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico, that draws on the power of traditional arts to catalyze dialogue, engagement and action around social justice and human rights issues. Deemed a “model of museum practice for the 21st century”, the Gallery of Conscience has tackled such timely global topics as HIV/AIDS, women’s empowerment, natural disasters, immigration, and the ethics of the global folk art marketplace.

Seriff has curated several award-winning traveling exhibitions including Recycled, Re-Seen: Folk Arts from the Global Scrap Heap, Forgotten Gateway: Coming to America Through Galveston Island and Empowering Women: Artisan Cooperatives that Transform Communities. 

She is a native Texan, married to her childhood sweetheart, with two grown children, both chefs, and a deep love for dark chocolate.