Yaelle joined RACC in April 2023 as a Grants Program Specialist to support and develop grant and learning programs serving the tri-county arts community. Prior to joining RACC, Yaelle spent the better part of the last two decades as an art worker--facilitating artists’ projects through exhibition-making, curatorial work, research, organizing, project management and grant writing.

Yaelle moved to Portland in 2015 to serve as the programs curator at the photography nonprofit Newspace; later she co-curated the 2019 Portland Biennial and the inaugural year of exhibitions at University of Oregon’s Center for Art Research (2020-2021). Prior to moving to Portland, she spent 12 years in New York, trying on many hats in the arts ecosystem and beyond.

When not at RACC, she spends time with her partner, two young kids and beloved pup Vinnie—experiencing art, swimming in the PNW’s many lakes and rivers, and carrying on a quest to find the region’s perfect pastries. She also continues to examine the ways in which the exhibition space can serve as a tool in community building, with a primary focus on artists whose practices supplement the initiatives of existing social movements.

(she/her/hers)