# Diana Nawi | Friday Heaters Podcast🔥 Episode 16

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/friday-heaters-podcast-7658615/diana-nawi-friday-heaters-podcast-episode-16
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/friday-heaters-podcast-7658615/diana-nawi-friday-heaters-podcast-episode-16.md
Podcast: [Friday Heaters Podcast](https://stenobird.com/podcast/friday-heaters-podcast-7658615)
Published: 2026-09-25T10:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://share.transistor.fm/s/026bb47e
Audio file: https://media.transistor.fm/026bb47e/efc5f276.mp3
Processing state: not_requested
JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/friday-heaters-podcast-7658615/episodes/diana-nawi-friday-heaters-podcast-episode-16
Duration seconds: 5922

## Resource

On this week’s episode of the Friday Heaters Podcast, we’re joined by curator Diana Nawi, whose career has taken her from institutions including the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi and Pérez Art Museum Miami to co-curating Prospect New Orleans and Made in L.A. 2023 at the Hammer Museum. Now back in Los Angeles, Diana is a curator of contemporary art at LACMA. We talk about what a curator actually does, how Diana found her way into the field, and why so much of her career has been shaped by relationships, curiosity, and what she describes as learning to “surf the wave in front of you.” She shares lessons from years of studio visits and working closely with artists, her approach to building exhibitions without forcing a predetermined idea onto the work, and why rigor remains central to how she thinks about art. We also get into the particular character of Los Angeles as an art city, the role of institutions like LACMA, the Hammer Museum, and MOCA, what artists should know about building relationships with curators, and the challenges facing artists and institutions in today’s art economy. Along the way, Diana reflects on Made in L.A. 2023, the value of looking beyond the traditional centers of the art world, and why some of the most meaningful curatorial work begins with simply staying open to what artists are already doing.

## Actions

- request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/friday-heaters-podcast-7658615/episodes/diana-nawi-friday-heaters-podcast-episode-16/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.
- read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/friday-heaters-podcast-7658615/diana-nawi-friday-heaters-podcast-episode-16.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.

A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed.

## Transcript

Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.