Photography by Yiannis Katsaris, Madeline Sweeney,
and Dominic Agostini.
Keidra Daniels Navaroli, Ph.D. is a curator, thought leader, and specialist in museum practice. For over eighteen years, her work in arts management, scholarship, and curation, has focused on addressing how museums broadly (and the medium of textiles specifically) can be utilized to question cultural divisions, foster intergenerational dialogue, and enhance the understanding of traditionally-underrepresented communities of practice. These experiences inform her current research interests, which are focused on the intersection of data science and art historical systems.
Keidra has lectured to audiences across the United States and abroad, including presentations organized by the American Alliance of Museums (AAM), Association of Academic Museums and Galleries, Museum (Getty) Leadership Institute, Florida Association of Museums, Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA), George Washington University, Parsons School of Design, Surface Design Association, Southeastern Museums Conference (SEMC), Southeastern College Art Conference (SECAC), and the University of the Arts London. Her award winning-curatorial work has been featured in Forbes, Culture Type, and numerous media outlets.
Keidra received a Ph.D. in Texts and Technology (with a concentration in Public History) from the University of Central Florida, her M.A. in Art History from Florida State University, and B.A. in Art History from the University of Florida. She completed internships with the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Sotheby’s Auction House in New York and is an alumna of the Museum (Getty) Leadership Institute’s NextGen Program. In 2024, Keidra was inducted into UCF's Order of Pegasus, the university's highest academic honor. Currently, Keidra serves on the editorial board for Panorama: Journal of the Association of Historians of American Art and the boards of the Mennello Museum of American Art, Association of Academic Museums and Galleries, and the Surface Design Association, as well as the Membership, Outreach, and Programs Committee of the Textile Society of America.
Current Projects/Work
Sylvia Hernandez, Angela’s Window Garden, 2023. Courtesy of the artist.
Histories in Thread: Honoring Heirlooms in Contemporary Quilting
August 1 - October 5, 2026
Orange County Regional History Center, First Floor
Quilts are histories. They comfort, they conform, they reveal, and they challenge. Histories in Thread: Honoring Heirlooms in Contemporary Quilting features seven nationally and internationally recognized textile artists who share a commitment to creativity and culture through quilting. Curated in partnership with the Quilt of Souls Historical Preservation Project and in dialogue with the rich, multilayered histories of Central Florida, this exhibition considers the stories we tell, the fragments we mend, and the spaces we share.
Coauthor, This is America: Re-viewing the Art of the United States. Published by Oxford University Press, This is America is a new, inclusive introduction to American visual culture from early history to the present. Reimagining the traditional survey of American art, the book provides expanded coverage of underrepresented stories through the inclusion of marginalized makers, diverse media, and vast geographic regions. In 2024, This is America was awarded the 2024 Textbook and Academic Authors Association's "Most Promising New Textbook" Award. Learn more here!
Manager of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion/Digital Art History, Panorama: Journal of the Association of Historians of American Art. Panorama is the first peer-reviewed, open-access, online journal dedicated to publishing groundbreaking scholarship on visual and material culture that circulates within and beyond the constructed geographies of what is now the United States. Published by University of Minnesota Libraries, the journal—which offers texts of varying lengths authored by leading and emerging thinkers—serves specialists, students at various levels, and lifelong learners.. Learn more here!