Maya Ortiz Saucedo is a curator, artist and researcher from Chicago, IL. They are currently the Permanent Collection Curatorial Assistant at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago. A domestic adoptee of Mexican and Puerto Rican descent, the foundations of their research center diasporic and performance studies through critical adoption studies, the adoption industrial complex and anti-colonial frameworks. Additionally their curatorial practice grounds itself within the intersectional histories, geographies and artistic and generational spaces of the Latine diaspora. They have curated exhibitions in Chicago and New York including HILOS at LatchKey Gallery, New York; Vigil(ia) at Chicago Art Department and Desde Afuera. Rapid. Chaotic at Grounded Studio, Chicago. They hold a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and Dual MA in Modern and Contemporary Art History & Arts Administration and Policy from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where, as a Graduate Curatorial Assistant, they co-curated and organized several exhibitions including New Work 2024, Graduate Exhibition One 2023 and 2024 and SAIC’s 2024 EXPO Chicago presentation Material Alchemy. Most recently they curated the exhibition If I Walk Through the Fire, Would You Join Me? at Chicago Art Department in 2025. They were an Artist-in-Residence at Chicago Art Department from 2024-2026 and are a member of The Adoptea, a Chicago based artist collective of domestic and transnational adoptees.
