A Day in Chicago with Curator Maite Borjabad

Having just finished a five-year tenure as Architecture & Design Curator with the Art Institute of Chicago, Maite Borjabad reflects on her days there before beginning her new post as Curator at the Guggenheim Bilbao. Maite’s days in Chicago involved mornings catching up with family in Spain, biking through the Chicago loop while listening to flamenco fusion or Radio Alhara, and alone time with AIC’s art collection.

7:15am: Usually I set my alarm clock for this time. Since I am not at all a morning person, the process of leaving bed takes some time. Then, as the day advances, I gain energy and speed up. But after I wake up, I spend some time in bed - reading news, checking text messages from family, friends, and close artists I am working with on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. Most of them are half way through their day so I really love waking up and having WhatsApp filled with texts and voice messages from family and friends as I enter the day.

8:15am: As soon as I leave bed, I play some music to start the day with energy — ususally La Sandunguera from Nathy Peluso. I then head to the kitchen to prepare my Bialetti coffee maker and have a shower while the coffee brews. The morning is “my moment” of the day so I really treasure it, and breakfast is my only religion. I won’t leave home without having my breakfast that usually consists of some fruit with yogurt, a couple of toasts with olive oil and tomato, and my coffee. Also due to the time difference, the morning would be my moment to do a video call with my family in Spain, and this usually causes my breakfast to be even longer as conversations with family will never be short check-ins.

9:15am: In my work there is not one day like the other, no matter if I’m traveling or onsite at the museum. The daily schedule depends heavily on the status of the projects. Usually when I have meetings with artists based in Europe or in the Middle East, I will use the early morning to do virtual meetings from home, even before Covid and the Zoom overdose started.

If I don’t have these meetings, I will be leaving home earlier and commuting to the museum by train in winter and biking when the Chicago weather allows. In my commute to the museum you will probably find me listening to Rosalia or more Nathy Peluso. It is quite an amazing — disorienting, even — experience to show up in the Chicago loop filled with high rise buildings, all shiny glass and steel and organized in an impenetrable grid, while listening to flamenco fusion, latin trap and hip hop, or reggaeton.

10:00am: As soon as I am in the museum, I spend most of my day in meetings. I lead different projects at the same time, with different timeframes, scopes, and teams, so much of my working hours go into meetings and workshopping sessions. To summarize, I am usually working at the same time in one or two temporal exhibitions that are usually planned at least two years out, then also two exhibition rotations of the permanent collection, ongoing acquisitions for the collection that gets formalized through acquisition committees, some sort of public programming, and diverse research projects and initiatives apart from mentoring some students. Not to mention the regular departmental housekeeping and museum recurring meetings.

2:30pm: As I will be quite packed in back-to-back meetings, I will usually carve half an hour to have lunch at this time when possible. After eight years of living in the United States, the only thing I haven't managed to adapt to is to eat lunch at noon, so I am still a late lunch person. I would usually bring a tupperware with food cooked at home, and when it is good weather I love eating my lunch at the North Garden at the Art Institute.

3:00pm: Apart from meetings, I also spend a lot of time in the vaults checking artworks that I am considering displaying in upcoming rotations. I usually try to do this towards the end of the day as it is one of my favorite moments. I get to be alone with artworks as they are completely bare — no mediations, no platforms, no frames, no glaze, no casework in between. I can explore them in full proximity, touch them, though always with care and gloves, and it becomes a very intimate process.

My time with the art is always a very powerful moment too because I get to feel the pieces’ fragility but at the same time the enormous power they have when looking at them. It is always a quite spiritual moment being alone in such a big space filled with many prints, models, objects, sculptures or textiles that accumulate so many narratives and histories that transcend me. It is like having access to a portal to travel in time, space and cultures.

4:30pm: Usually at this time meetings are over and many of my colleagues start to leave the museum. The last two or three hours at the museum for me are the most productive and I take care of all my personal work: emails that deserve more dedication, review edits of texts, research…I love to work until late as the museum offices get emptied and I remain alone.

Of course none of what I just mentioned would be my day if I am installing an exhibition. During the installation weeks I will be in the galleries from 9am to 5pm, and you can find me supervising construction works with the exhibition designer, setting up artworks with the art handlers, troubleshooting last minute issues, reviewing artworks with conservators, installing mock ups with the graphic designer or testing lighting while writing emails sitting in the floor or setting up a kind of temporal desk with my laptop and notebook on top of crates or trash bins. Those days I am a nomad and everything happens on the go.

6:30pm: Usually I would leave the museum around this time or a bit later. However this might change if for instance I would have to attend an exhibition opening, or give a tour of an exhibition or a lecture. Most of those events would take place around 5pm or 6pm which would imply my evening organization would shift too. Apart from being a full-time curator in the museum I have also taught in different universities, so I would usually try to have my class on Mondays or Fridays so it doesn’t interfere with the rhythm at the museum, and it is easier for me as those days I am in full research and thinking mode.

Again, none of the above would be the case if I am travelling to see exhibitions, visiting architects and artists studios, researching archives and other museum collections. When travelling, time stops in a weird way as I am immersed for some days in very intense trips at the same time that I have to keep up with the ongoing projects that follow their course on site in the museum. So, you will find me answering emails in airport terminals, connecting into video calls in weird places or writing and editing texts in airplanes, which I have discovered to be amazingly productive times to do a deep dive in some texts and ideas, as I get disconnected from the outside world– no emails, no texts, no calls, no urgent problems to solve.

7:00pm: When I leave the museum my playlist on my way home on the train would probably be a good House music session, or something from Nicolas Jaar or Deena Abdelwahed to get transported to another dimension. Since the Covid quarantine started, Radio Alhara has become also a constant companion on my daily routine. Usually after work I will try to exercise twice a week, swimming and spinning are my favorites and when good weather starts in Chicago, I would go out for a run. The rest of the days, after work I would either grab a drink with a friend or I would be at home playing my violoncello to disconnect from the day and transition into my own personal time.

9:30pm: As a late lunch eater, I am also a late dinner person. I love cooking and it really helps me disconnect. I cook my dinner and my lunch for the next day so I would usually pour a good glass of wine and snack on some cheese while I cook and chat with friends in the same time zone, so my dear friends in New York, Santiago de Chile or Mexico City.

12:00am: I would need to try very hard to get into bed before this time. Although I try to be in a disconnected mood since I leave work, I am a night owl and so easily I end up engaged in writing some thoughts or notes for ideas and future dreams and projects at night. I get lost in doing weird things at weird late hours quite often. Eventually, I go to bed and watch a series until I fall asleep.