Gillian Sneed

Gillian Sneed serves as Assistant Professor and Art History and Foundations Coordinator at San Diego State University's School of Art and Design. She holds a PhD in art history from the Graduate Center, City University of New York.

Her research centers on 20th- and 21st-century feminist art histories of the Americas, with concentrated focus on Brazilian modern and contemporary art and transnational artistic exchanges between Latin America and the United States. She critically examines intersecting practices of film, video, performance, conceptual, and socially engaged art through frameworks of gendered, sexual, and racial politics. Her scholarly approach integrates visual culture studies with decolonial methodologies.

Recent publications demonstrate sustained engagement with feminist perspectives and Brazilian art movements, including co-edited correspondence volumes and critical analyses of artists like Lygia Pape. Her work spans peer-reviewed journals such as Women's Art Journal and Revista de História da Arte, alongside contributions to Art in America and Flash Art International, revealing consistent thematic threads in performance-for-camera studies and transnational dialogues.

Professor Sneed has secured significant research funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Association of Latin American Art, Getty Foundation, and Terra Foundation. She actively contributes to academic discourse through committee service on the College Art Association's Committee on Diversity Practices.

She is currently curating an exhibition for SDSU's University Art Gallery focused on Amazon rainforest representations, scheduled to coincide with the 2024 Brazilian Studies Association Congress. Her professional activities include guest lectures at La Jolla Playhouse and Americas Society, alongside editorial projects examining women's video art of the 1970s.