PhD, Art History, Theory & Criticism, University of California, San Diego (2017)
Amanda Cachia is an independent curator and critic from Sydney, Australia. She received her PhD in Art History, Theory & Criticism from the University of California San Diego in 2017. Her research focuses on modern and contemporary art; curatorial studies and activism; exhibition design and access; decolonizing the museum; and the politics of embodied disability language in visual culture. She is currently working on two book projects: a monograph based on her dissertation entitled Disability, Art, Agency: Participation and the Revision of the Senses solicited by Duke University Press, and the edited volume Curating Access: Disability Art Activism and Creative Accommodation under contract with Routledge to be released in December 2022, that includes over 30 contributors from around the world. Cachia currently teaches art history, visual culture, and curatorial studies at Otis College of Art and Design, California Institute of the Arts, California State University Long Beach, and California State University San Marcos. She serves as caa.reviews Field Editor for West Coast Exhibitions (2020-2023).
Cachia has curated approximately 40 exhibitions, many of which contain social justice themes and content. Her critical writing has been published in eight edited volumes, numerous exhibition catalogues and art journals including Artforum, CAA Reviews, Canadian Art, Art Monthly Australia and On Curating, and peer-reviewed academic journals such as Art Journal, South Atlantic Quarterly, Design and Culture, Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies, Journal of Visual Art Practice, Museums and Social Issues, and The Senses and Society. She has also contributed an entry to Disability in American Life: An Encyclopedia of Concepts, Policies, and Controversies focusing on disability and contemporary art.
She has participated in numerous international and national conferences and related events within the USA, Canada, Australia, Europe and the Middle East, and has guest lectured at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), State University of New York (SUNY) at Purchase, Ontario College of Art and Design, Ryerson University, New York University, Goldsmiths College, Sydney College of the Arts, and Maryland Institute College of Art, among others. Cachia has served as a disability arts consultant for the Metropolitan Museum in New York, Visiting Critic for the International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP) in NYC, and as a panelist for Creative Capital, the Rubin Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Art Works grant and Canada Council for the Arts.