Coffee Chat: Kendyll Gross and Yohanna Tesfai

Kendyll Gross serves as the Art Galleries at Black Studies' Curator of Public Programs. She holds a BA from Emory University and an MA in Art History from the University of Texas at Austin (UT), where she specialized in the art of Mesoamerica, and modern appropriations of ancient art forms. She has worked with the Blanton Museum of Art as a Graduate Teaching Fellow, and with UT’s Mesoamerica Center as a Curatorial Research Assistant. Her public education experience includes researching and preparing lectures for a range of audiences—from K-12, to university groups, to museum volunteers.

Yohanna Tesfai hails from Dallas, Texas and is currently the Public Programs Manager at the San Antonio Museum of Art. She worked for several museum institutions prior to SAMA including the Mexic-Arte Museum and the Dallas Museum of Art where she was the McDermott Fellow for Community and Gallery Teaching. She holds a BA and MA in Art History from Emory University and The University of Texas at Austin, respectively. In her free time, she enjoys reading both historical and science fiction, and loves thinking about alternate realities and liberation.

Coffee Chats feature leaders in the creative community sharing their personal and professional experiences to inspire others pursuing careers in art. To view past conversations, visit bigmedium.org/coffeechats.⁠