Skip to content

2025 Festival Jurors

Back

Introduction

The Tephra ICA Arts Festival is a highly selective fine art and fine craft outdoor exhibition. Each year, three top visual arts leaders, artists, and practitioners are identified as jurors to allow a thoughtful and critically engaged review process. Each application will be digitally reviewed by jurors and they will select the most accomplished artists within ten categories from around the nation to present their works at the Festival. The jurors will attend the Festival and will award the top ten artists to be announced at the Festival Cocktail Hour. Learn more about the 2024 jurors below.

Image of juror

Adjoa Burrowes

Adjoa Jackson Burrowes is a multidisciplinary artist and educator that has been based in the Washington, DC metropolitan area for over 20 years. Her work explores themes of cultural history through printmaking, bookmaking, painting, and other mixed media. She is a graduate of Howard University (BFA in Printmaking) and the Corcoran School of Art at The George Washington University (MA in Art Education). Burrowes has exhibited nationally and internationally, including the recent year-long Holding Ground exhibition at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Burrowes is a recipient of numerous awards and fellowships such as the 2024 Virginia Commission for the Arts Printmaking Fellowship, the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities Art Bank Grant, and 2nd Place Made in VA exhibition award from the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art. Burrowes has collaborated with John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and presents on her practice and cultural history at various other institutions such as Biblioteca de San Miguel de Allende in Mexico, and Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, Florida. Burrowes works on paper can be found in collections at the Library of Congress, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Banneker Douglass Museum of Culture and History, and James E. Lewis Museum of Art at Morgan State University, among others

Image of juror

Abdulrahman Naanseh

Abdulrahman Naanseh is a Syrian-born artist and educator based in Virginia, recognized for his expertise in Arabic calligraphy. With a career that bridges tradition and modernity, his work has been showcased in exhibitions across Syria, Germany, and the United States and a permanent installation at Durham University’s Oriental Museum in London.

As an alumnus of the Artist Protection Fund, currently a Visiting Administrative Faculty Fellow, and former Artist-in-Residence at George Mason University, Naanseh teaches Drawing and Arabic calligraphy, sharing his knowledge and passion with students. Beyond teaching, he engages in projects that use art as a tool for healing and community connection.

Image of juror

Marta Staudinger

Marta Staudinger is the director of Latela Curatorial, a full-service art advisory studio that weaves together conceptual fine art projects and artist support via a holistic approach to art collecting and placemaking. She holds a master’s degree in Contemporary Art and Curatorial Studies from the Universidad de Ramon Lull (Barcelona, Spain) and a triple undergraduate degree in Art History, Sociology and Communications from George Mason University (Fairfax, VA). She has worked in multiple fine art capacities to include prominent art historical institutions such as the National Bargello Museum in Florence, Italy; the Antoni Tàpies Foundation in Barcelona, Spain; the Art Museum of the Americas and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.

In early 2020, at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, Marta initiated the GLB Memorial Fund for the Arts which provides financial support to woman-identifying artists and curators who reside in Washington DC, Maryland or Virginia to further advance women-led contemporary art initiatives. The same year, she also launched the See Support Collect Initiative, which is an intersectional placemaking and gap-filling initiative that focuses on collectorship of art by women and non-binary artists. In 2021, Marta opened the Silva Gallery in partnership with Eastbanc, to provide additional exhibition opportunities and curated promotion to artists based in the Greater Washington DC area. Her curatorial projects have been featured in the Washington Post, Washingtonian, DC Modern Luxury, East City Art and BmoreArt. She is a recipient of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Fellowship Grant, the Honfleur Women in Arts Program Curator Grant, and a Curatorial Participant of DE.a.RE (Deconstruct and Rebuild) by BJCEM (Biennale des Jeunes Créateurs de l’Europe et de la Méditerranée) and co-funded by the European Union.

Back To Top