Erika Hirugami

First-generation transnational Japanese Mexican immigrant, formerly undocumented.

Hirugami holds an MA in Art Business from the Sotheby’s Institute of Art, in conjunction with the Drucker School of Management and Getty Leadership Institute at Claremont Graduate University. As well as an MA in Chicanx Studies from UCLA entitled “Political Art Action: The Aesthetics of Undocumentedness,” and BAs in the fields of Art History, Chicano Studies, and Mexican Studies. Hirugami is currently a teaching associate and doctoral candidate at UCLA, where she epistemologically braids the aesthetics of undocumentedness to challenge immigration policy and politics.

Hirugami is the founder and CEO of CuratorLove, Co-founder of the UNDOC+Collective, the ED at AHSC, a Professor at CBMArts and SMC, Arts for LA Fellow, NALAC NLI Fellow, and CCI Catalyst. As a Getty and Kress Foundation Fellow, she has developed curatorial statements at museums across Mexico and the United States. After being a Public Art Curator for the Department of Cultural Affairs in the City of Los Angeles, Hirugami became the Curatorial Director for the Ronald McDonald House Charities while leading various commercial galleries. She has curated exhibitions for multiple spaces across the globe, and her written work has been published internationally.