Kiara Cristina Ventura (b. 1996) is a Dominican-American Afro-Indigenous artist, curator, writer, and founder of PROCESSA . A Bronx native, Ventura creates spaces and experiences that center African and Indigenous diasporas. Her work spans curation, writing, performance, and sound—each rooted in ritual, healing, and spirituality.

Ventura’s love for art history began when she interned at The Metropolitan Museum of Art during high school. She went on to double major in Art History and Journalism at NYU, graduating in 2018. Confronted by the absence of artists of color in her studies and the larger art world, she responded by writing, curating, and building community. She initiated her curatorial practice as PROCESSA during her time in college in 2015.

More recently, she was a 2022–23 Curatorial Fellow at NXTHVN and in 2025 was named to Forbes 30 Under 30 in Art & Style. Since 2015, Ventura has curated exhibitions and programs at institutions including the Museum of the African Diaspora (San Francisco), BronxArtSpace, VisArts Maryland, Penn State University, Hostos Longwood Gallery, The Andrew Freedman Home, Reparations Club (Los Angeles), NXTHVN, and Sean Kelly Gallery. Her writing has appeared in Artforum, Performa Magazine, Aperture, Cultured, and Teen Vogue.

Her artistic practice expands beyond curation into performance and sound. Through movement, ritual, and music, Ventura engages beaches, rivers, forests, and oceans as collaborators and archives. Her works are odes to spirit and nature—gestures that honor ancestral knowledge while creating portals of healing and reflection for the present.

PROCESSA (est. 2015) is Ventura’s roving curatorial platform presenting exhibitions, talks, performances, and gatherings that foster connection between artists and the public. Now housed in a physical studio space in Ridgewood, Queens, Processa produces two ongoing digital series on Youtube every month, the podcast Processa Talks and the DJ show, Processa Frequencies.

Her work has been written about in Afropunk, Sugarcane Magazine, Gallery Gurls, Artforum, Elephant Magazine, and Artnet. She has been featured in campaigns with Refinery29 Somos, Ulta Beauty, Awake x Crocs, and more.

IG: @kiara_cristina

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