Pomp and Circumstance
Organizers say the “Glory” installation channeled the 1970s, “an era that symbolizes cultural pride and transformation.”
Juanita Austin ’16 (SFA), who goes by Juanita Sunday professionally, has been making her mark in Connecticut’s arts community as a curator, cultural producer, and exhibition designer based in New Haven. She’s currently a curatorial fellow at NXTHVN, an internationally recognized New Haven arts center, where she recently co-curated “Glory,” an immersive exhibition that transforms the gallery into an imagined 1970s-inspired Black American home. It explores “the ways working class Black Americans have built beauty, community, and meaning inside the walls that held them.” Sunday was named a 2024 Connecticut Arts Hero and received a 2025 Connecticut Arts Excellence Award from the Connecticut Office of the Arts. She’s gearing up for her next chapter, having been accepted into the Maryland Institute College of Art’s MFA curatorial practice program with the support of the competitive Leslie King-Hammond Graduate Fellowship.
Photo by Chris Gardner, courtesy of NXTHVN