The Larry Sultan Visiting Artist Program, a free, public on-campus lecture series, pays tribute to the renowned photographic artist and longtime CCA faculty member Larry Sultan. Each year this series brings to campus prominent photographers and artists working in photography-related media to give public presentations. The Larry Sultan Visiting Artist Program is presented by the California College of the Arts Photography Program.

Speaker Bio:

With over 25 years of professional experience working in the arts, Makeda Best is currently Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Oakland Museum of California, where she oversees the Curatorial, Collections, and Production departments. A historian of photography and former curator at the Harvard Art Museums, her exhibitions included Time is Now: Photography and Social Change in James Baldwin’s America, Crossing Lines, Constructing Home: Displacement and Belonging in Contemporary Art, Devour the Land: War and American Landscape Photography Since 1970, and Please Stay Home: Darrell Ellis in Conversation with Leslie Hewitt and Wardell Milan. The catalog for Devour the Land was awarded 2022 Photography Catalogue of the Year by Aperture/Paris Photo. Her most recent exhibition, “American Job: 1940-2011,” was on view at the International Center for Photography in New York in early 2025. 

Writing on a range of historical and contemporary topics in the history of photography, Best has contributed to numerous exhibition catalogs, journals and scholarly publications. She is the author of Elevate the Masses: Alexander Gardner, Photography and Democracy in 19th Century America and co-editor of Conflict and Identity in American Art. She is currently working on several book projects. Best has taught at Harvard University, Tufts University, the University of Vermont, and the California College of the Arts.  In addition to serving on many juries, panels, and advisory teams, she is a co-founder and current board member of Museums Moving Forward. She holds a BFA and MFA from CalArts in Studio Photography, and a PhD from Harvard University.