Bio — Jaclyn Reyes

With studio mates Sili (left) and Pili (right)

Jaclyn Reyes (b. Los Angeles, CA) is an interdisciplinary artist, designer, cultural organizer, and PhD student in Social Welfare at The City University of New York, Graduate Center. Based in New York City and working between the U.S. and the Philippines, her work combines visual art, public programming, and community partnerships to explore ideas of place, heritage, and identity through design and storytelling. She draws from a background in design, education, arts administration, and field research to support projects that bring together art, social welfare, and education.

Her work has been exhibited at MoMA PS1, the Queens Museum, and Flushing Town Hall in New York City, and Ateneo Art Gallery (Manila), Alfredo F. Tadiar Library (La Union), and Ang Panublion Museum (Roxas City, Capiz) in the Philippines. She is currently working with the UKAI Initiative, an international platform focused on environmental themes and the afterlives of material culture, and is curating and installing an exhibition on this work called Worn Worlds at the Meranaw Cultural Heritage Center in Marawi, Mindanao in August 2025.

Her long-term efforts through Little Manila Queens Bayanihan Arts have included curating exhibitions, producing public art installations, and organizing events and creative campaigns in collaboration with artists and community groups. These projects include The Tandang Sora Project, Meal to Heal, and the Little Manila Avenue street co-naming.

Jaclyn has worked with the International Rescue Committee, the United Nations Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, BerlinRosen, the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, Penguin Random House, Condé Nast, and Visionaire. She recently taught “Human Rights and Social Policy” at the CUNY Silberman School of Social Work as an adjunct lecturer, and has also worked as a teaching artist in New York City, Malaysia, the Philippines, Guatemala, and Cambodia.

She was a Fulbright U.S. Student Scholar (2014) in Malaysia and has received fellowships and awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA), the Laundromat Project, the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP), Monument Lab, the Asian Women Giving Circle, En Foco, and the New York State Council on the Arts. Her work has been featured by The New York Times, Artforum, Gothamist, ARTnews, and Public Radio International. In 2023, she was recognized in City & State New York’s Queens Power 100 list. She has participated in initiatives through the SUNY/CUNY Southeast Asia Consortium, Social Practice CUNY (SPCUNY), and the Black, Race, and Ethnic Studies (BRES) Fellowship. She was named a 2025 ERI/Public Scholarship Practice Space Summer Public Research Fellow at The Graduate Center, demonstrating her commitment to public-facing scholarship and inquiry.

Jaclyn studied Studio Art at California State University Long Beach before transferring to Syracuse University where she received her BFA in Art Photography. In 2019, she earned her Ed.M. in Arts in Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.