Sandra Terdjman Named 2026-27 Keith Haring Chair in Art and Activism
Sandra Terdjman. Photo by Alexandre Guirkinger
The Center for Curatorial Studies (CCS Bard) and Bard College’s Human Rights Project announce that curator and cultural leader Sandra Terdjman has been named the 2026-27 Keith Haring Chair in Art and Activism. Established in 2014, the initiative brings leading scholars, activists, and artists into an endowed faculty position to teach and conduct research within the CCS Bard graduate program and the undergraduate Human Rights Program. The position represents Bard College and the Keith Haring Foundation’s shared longstanding commitment to advancing scholarship and creative practices at the intersection of art and social justice.
Based in France, Sandra Terdjman is a curator whose research-driven work emphasizes collaboration and artist-led social transformation across the globe. As the co-founder of KADIST, a nonprofit organization that collects and exhibits the work of contemporary artists from more than 100 countries across five continents, and AFIELD, an international network supporting artist-led initiatives through grantmaking as well as peer-to-peer and public programming. Terdjman has created an expansive and inclusive arts ecosystem that sustains networks of exchange, solidarity, and collective action across geographic and institutional boundaries.
“Sandra’s long-standing record of leading groundbreaking nonprofit cultural platforms demonstrates how institution building can be a mode of activism in its own right. Through her impressive work with a transnational perspective, she has continued to shape the role of the arts,” said Mariano López Seoane, Director of the Graduate Program and ISLAA Fellow in Latin American Art at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. “Her inclusive support of artists and advancement of the contemporary art landscape deeply aligns with the mission of CCS Bard and the Keith Haring Chair initiative to advance new perspectives in contemporary art.”
“Sandra’s current work on artist-led transitional justice perfectly reflects the ethos of the Haring Chair,” said Thomas Keenan, Director of Bard’s Human Rights Project. “She is exploring the intersection of human rights and the arts at a profound level. She is not interested in art-with-a-conscience or in making justice more attractive; she is asking what happens when artists actively intervene, as artists, in situations of injustice in order to transform them. We are grateful to Sandra for inviting our students into this research process with her."
“The Keith Haring Foundation is delighted by Sandra Terdjman’s appointment as the 2026–27 Keith Haring Chair in Art and Activism at CCS. Her record of championing artists and artist-led community initiatives reflects the Foundation’s history and mission. She joins a distinguished group of past Chairs who, since the position’s founding in 2014, have advanced Keith Haring’s firmly held belief that ‘the contemporary artist has a responsibility to [oppose] the dehumanization of our culture,’” said Simon Castets, Executive Director of the Keith Haring Foundation.
Post Date: 10-30-2026
Based in France, Sandra Terdjman is a curator whose research-driven work emphasizes collaboration and artist-led social transformation across the globe. As the co-founder of KADIST, a nonprofit organization that collects and exhibits the work of contemporary artists from more than 100 countries across five continents, and AFIELD, an international network supporting artist-led initiatives through grantmaking as well as peer-to-peer and public programming. Terdjman has created an expansive and inclusive arts ecosystem that sustains networks of exchange, solidarity, and collective action across geographic and institutional boundaries.
“Sandra’s long-standing record of leading groundbreaking nonprofit cultural platforms demonstrates how institution building can be a mode of activism in its own right. Through her impressive work with a transnational perspective, she has continued to shape the role of the arts,” said Mariano López Seoane, Director of the Graduate Program and ISLAA Fellow in Latin American Art at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. “Her inclusive support of artists and advancement of the contemporary art landscape deeply aligns with the mission of CCS Bard and the Keith Haring Chair initiative to advance new perspectives in contemporary art.”
“Sandra’s current work on artist-led transitional justice perfectly reflects the ethos of the Haring Chair,” said Thomas Keenan, Director of Bard’s Human Rights Project. “She is exploring the intersection of human rights and the arts at a profound level. She is not interested in art-with-a-conscience or in making justice more attractive; she is asking what happens when artists actively intervene, as artists, in situations of injustice in order to transform them. We are grateful to Sandra for inviting our students into this research process with her."
“The Keith Haring Foundation is delighted by Sandra Terdjman’s appointment as the 2026–27 Keith Haring Chair in Art and Activism at CCS. Her record of championing artists and artist-led community initiatives reflects the Foundation’s history and mission. She joins a distinguished group of past Chairs who, since the position’s founding in 2014, have advanced Keith Haring’s firmly held belief that ‘the contemporary artist has a responsibility to [oppose] the dehumanization of our culture,’” said Simon Castets, Executive Director of the Keith Haring Foundation.
Post Date: 10-30-2026