Vyjayanthi Rao

Vyjayanthi V. Rao is an anthropologist, writer, artist and curator, currently teaching at the Yale School of Architecture.  Her work focuses on the built environment and urbanism in India and the United States.  She has published extensively on these subjects and serves as an Editor in Chief of the journal Public Culture (Duke University Press).  She is the chief curator of the third editor of the Sharjah Architecture Triennial, opening in November 2026.  Past curatorial projects include the exhibition Multiplicity as part of the Lisbon Architecture Triennial (2022) and Seeking Refuge and Making Home at the Center for Architecture in New York (2023).  Vyjayanthi has participated as an artist in the Kochi Biennale (2016), the Venice Architecture Biennale (2021), the Chicago Architecture Biennale (2023) and in the Berlinale Film Festival (2025).  Her artistic work comprises of a suite of collaboratively produced film installations and lecture performances titled Beneath the Placid Lake and Monumental Returns.