Tayler Friar
Tayler Ava Friar is an art historian and international communications consultant with a passion for storytelling.
She holds a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies from Spelman College and a Master of Science in International Development from University College London. Her career began in tech communication, one of her roles being editor-in-chief of “Women in Technology” initiatives at Google. Since leaving the US in 2013, she has been living abroad across Europe, Asia, and now Africa.
Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel. Still photo taken from FOOTPRINTS, a short film produced by ART|unknown. in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Courtesy of the artist.
Tayler is a remote professional, and a fan of slow travel, preferring to live in a place for 3 months or more at a time before moving. She has traveled to 35+ countries.
For the last five years, she has been a communications officer at the World Bank, first supporting their Innovation Labs in Washington DC and Tokyo, and later leading communications in the Social, Urban, Rural and Resilience practice. Recognizing the emerging use of art in the development agenda, Ms. Friar served as communications lead for a 500+ person summit in Bridgetown, Barbados, where she did her first curatorial collaboration with the University of the West Indies. This opening exhibition was attended by the Hon. Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Amor Mottley.
She has recently transitioned jobs during the pandemic and now serves as Communications Advisor at the United Nations Development Programme. Additionally, she is a newly appointed contributing writer at Business Insider and founder of ART|unknown. - a platform that explores the intersection of the art, black avant-garde and travel in the African Diaspora.
Murals of Guadalupe. Photo taken from FOOTPRINTS, a short film produced by ART|unknown. in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Courtesy of the artist.
Ms. Friar previously served as a lecturer and is in the final year of her PhD program in Art History at the University of Cape Town. Her thesis is entitled “Black sexual politics and the erotic: The intersection of gender politics and sexuality in contemporary visual art in Africa” which will be partially published this year with Aix-Marseille University in Provence, France.
Her interests include the politics of visual culture, womxn leadership, the decolonization of art, and climate action. At the university, her most recent lecture series was entitled “Art, Theory, and Society” which focused on various histories of representation of the black female form from The Belle Époque to contemporary contexts. Ms. Friar has been recently been tapped to host a series of episodes as part of the FUTURE OF WOMEN podcast which will focus on the landscape of African art, sex and academia. Finally, Ms. Friar can be seen as a feature in Vogue Magazine’s November 2020 issue, speaking to the importance of black voices in the 2020 US elections.
Instituto Allende. Still photo taken from FOOTPRINTS, a short film produced by ART|unknown. in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Courtesy of the artist.
In her spare time, she can be found in that cafe you never noticed, practicing kizomba, painting, or working on her yoga postures. She lives in Cape Town, South Africa but is proudly from Oakland, California.