Ulla Holmquist Pachas

Class of 1974 Fellow

04/05/2025–06/13/2025

Ulla Holmquist Pachas is a professor in the archaeology program and in the MA program in Art History and Curatorship at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú in Lima. In 2019, she served as Minister of Culture of Peru and director of the Inca Garcilaso Cultural Center of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Peru. Previously, Holmquist has held many museum leadership roles: as director of the Museo Central, Central Bank of Perú (MUCEN, 2015–18); chief curator and director of academic & cultural affairs of the Museo Larco (2008–15); headed the curator of Pre-Columbian Art at the Museo de Arte de Lima (MALI, 2002–03); and deputy director of the Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú (MNAAHP, 2001–02). In addition, since 2001 she has directed the development of the electronic catalogue of the Museo Larco, a project that makes publicly available the entire collection of over 45,000 objects; Museo Larco is the first Latin American museum to do so. In addition, she was a senior Peruvian consultant to the IMA (International Museum Academy) British Council Program in Peru (2018–20), and a regional representative of the Pedagogía de Museos Latinoamérica program of the Goethe Institute (2011–13). She has curated national and international Peruvian Pre-Columbian art exhibitions, like the recent exhibition Machu Picchu and the Golden Empires of Peru (2021–22). She has an MA in Museum Studies from New York University and is currently a PhD Candidate in the PEA Program (Programa de Estudios Andinos) in archaeology at the Universidad Católica del Perú, researching the Female Wak’a of the Northern Coast in Pre-Columbian times.