Lydia Matthews is a curator, writer, educator and founding director of the Curatorial Design Research Lab at Parsons. Her work explores how contemporary artists, artisans, and designers foster critical democratic debates and intimate community interactions in the public sphere, often in response to a variety of urgent global and local conditions in their daily lives. Commissioned by Open Society Foundation, Trust for Mutual Understanding, CEC Artslink, Fulbright Foundation, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Emre Senan Foundation, and the US Embassy, she has curated numerous exhibitions, community-based urban festivals, and multidisciplinary pedagogical exchanges in the Post-Soviet region, Turkey, Southern Europe, and New York. She serves on ACC’s board.