Curatorial Exchange

Established in 2018, the Curatorial Exchange is an invitation-only program and is one of the nation’s only dedicated initiatives focused on funding global curator convenings that fosters future collaborations for curators on the local, national, and international level.

The Curatorial Exchange is developed in partnership with foreign consulates and cultural agencies from countries around the world including the Australian Consulate-General Chicago; the Danish Arts Foundation and the Consulate General of Denmark in New York; Villa Albertine and the Consulat Général de France à Chicago; Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Chicago; Consulate General of the Republic of Lithuania in Chicago; the Lithuanian Culture Institute; the Consulado General de México en Chicago; Dutch Culture USA, a program by the Consulate General of Netherlands of New York; Québec Government Office in Chicago; Taipei Cultural Center in New York; and Arts Council of Ireland.

2024 Partners

2024 CURATORIAL EXCHANGE PARTICIPANTS

Johanne Affricot

Founder and Artistic Director
SPAZIO GRIOT

Johanne Affricot is an independent curator and cultural producer. She is particularly invested in creating creative spaces as re-generative devices to collectively cultivate and disseminate strategies and practices of radical imagination that have a strong cultural and social impact. Since October 2023, she serves as Curator-at-Large at the American Academy in Rome, and is the founder and artistic director of SPAZIO GRIOT and GriotMag. Her recent projects include the solo exhibition Il Mio Filippino: For Those Who Care To See (Mattatoio, Rome, 2023); the group show and public programme Sediments. After Memory (Mattatoio, Rome, 2022); the discursive programme Chef Binta. Reframing Traditions (Museo delle Civiltà, Rome, 2022). An indipendent researcher, Affricot holds an MA in "Innovation and Development" from the University La Sapienza in Rome. In 2022 she co-edited the limited edition poetry collection Rage & Desire (SPAZIO GRIOT, British Council) and the publication Exercises for the Imagination of a Space (SPAZIO GRIOT, Palazzo delle Esposizioni).

Stéphanie Airaud

Director
Musée d’Art Contemporain de Marseille

Graduated of the Ecole du Louvre, Paris Sorbonne University and the Institut national du patrimoine, Stéphanie Airaud started at the Musée d'Art moderne et contemporain in Strasbourg before heading the fine arts and contemporary art department of the Annecy Museum in 2002. She contributed to the development of the contemporary art collection focused on landscape interpretation and curated exhibitions and artistic commissions with Philippe Durand, Cécile Bart or Françoise Pétrovitch. She participated in the emergence of MAC VAL in 2004, the first contemporary art museum in the Parisian suburbs dedicated to art in France from the 1950s to the present day. Head director for audiences and cultural programs until 2021, Stéphanie Airaud carried a multidisciplinary program, at the crossroads of contemporary art, literature and live performance, questioning the forms taken by writing, the words, actions and participation of the public in the mediation processes of contemporary art. She has notably curated projects co-created by Marie Preston, Nicolas Floc'h and Esther Ferrer. Giving a theoretical and reflective framework to these practices, mixing contemporary creation, mediation and institutional criticism, she directed a cycle of symposium among which: «Fragile attention (Careful, fragile). The museum at risk of vulnerability” in 2018, “Participa(c)tion” in 2013, “Du dire au faire” (From saying to doing) in 2011, or “Date limite de conservation” (Retention deadline) in 2009. In 2022, Stéphanie Airaud was appointed curator at the Galerie d'architecture moderne et contemporaine of the Cité de l'architecture et du patrimoine. In charge of the preventive conservation and restoration program, she contributed through her experience of inclusive mediation to the dissemination of contemporary architectural issues in France. She continues her research at the crossroads of aesthetics, sociology and anthropology of art as part of a PhD in museology at the University Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle. On July 4, 2023, she took the direction of the [mac], Museum of Contemporary Art in Marseille.

Neringa Bumblienė

Curator
Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius

Neringa Bumblienė is a curator and author. She was the curator of the Pavilion of Lithuania at the 59th Biennale di Venezia in 2022 and the artistic director of the first Vilnius Biennial of Performance Art in 2023. Since 2014, she has worked as a curator at the Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) in Vilnius, Lithuania. She respectively graduated from the Vilnius Academy of Arts with a Master’s degree in Curatorial Studies and a thesis on ‘Animism and Objecthood in Neo-Conceptual Art Installations’; and from the curatorial school École du Magasin in Grenoble, France. Throughout her career, she has worked on diverse contemporary art projects from large-scale international group exhibitions and performance festivals to solo presentations of emerging and established artists, including Robertas Narkus in 2023, 2022, and 2020, Pierre Huyghe in 2022, Michael Rakowitz in 2020, Alejandro Cesarco in 2019, Daniel Steegmann Mangrané in 2018, and Liam Gillick in 2017 and 2014. Among areas of her interest is contemporary art that sensitively reflects upon the challenges of the current world and helps imagine the future. She is a Board Member of the IKT – International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art and an advisor on contemporary art at the Lithuanian Council for Culture – Lithuania’s major public funding body to support culture. Her texts have been published in exhibition catalogues and art publications, including the catalogue of the 59th Venice Biennale, the guide of the Vilnius Biennial of Performance Art, the Portuguese contemporary art guide PARTE Book, and the catalogue of the Baltic Triennial 13.

Ana Castella

Director
Salón ACME

Ana Castella is a curator and cultural manager who works in Mexico City. She is the director of Salón ACME and an agent for Artforum magazine in Latin America, Spain, and Portugal. In addition, she directs a collaborative ceramics project called Quema. She has worked in commercial galleries in Mexico and the United Kingdom, and has collaborated with Latin American fairs such as arteBA in Buenos Aires and ArtBO in Bogotá. Ana has curated exhibitions such as "miss fotojapón" with Colombian artist Juan Pablo Echeverri at MAHG in León, Guanajuato, "Retrato de un artista" at the inaugural show of PEANA gallery, and "Libélula Island" by Chilean artist Jessica Briseño Cisneros at Proyecto N.A.S.A.L. Her curatorial work is primarily based on hospitality, care practices, and interdisciplinary collaboration. Ana is a graduate of the University of the Arts London Central Saint Martins, with a degree in Art, Design, and Environment.

MILLY ALEXANDRA DERY

Curator
Fonderie Darling

Milly Alexandra Dery works as curator at Fonderie Darling, where she has curated numerous individual and group exhibitions, working with artists Michael Eddy, Jeanette Johns and Frances Adair McKenzie among others. She writes exhibition reviews and artist profiles for the magazines Espace Art Actuel, Ciel Variable and Esse arts+opinions, and has collaborated on various projects as a guest author. In 2021, she edited the monographic publication Of Things as They Happen to Be accompanying Jeanette Johns' solo exhibition, which received the Prix Bronze IDÉA in the Editions category. She sits on the Board of Directors of the pan-Canadian organization of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA-Canada). Milly Alexandra Dery holds a B.A. from McGill University and an M.A. in Art History from the Université de Montréal, and currently lives in Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montreal.

Léuli Eshrāghi

Curator of Indigenous Arts
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

Léuli Eshrāghi (they/them) was born in Yuwi Country in northeast Australia, belongs to the Seumanutafa and Tautua clans of the Sāmoan archipelago, and lives and works in Tiohtià:ke / Mooniyaang / Montréal. Their artistic, critical and curatorial practice prioritizes global Indigenous, Asian and Black visuality, sensual and spoken languages, and ceremonial-political practices. They worked as Curator of the 8th TarraWarra Biennial: ua usiusi faʻavaʻasavili from 2021 to 2023 (Highly Commended, Victorian Museums and Galleries Awards 2023), and Curatorial Researcher at Large at the University of Queensland Art Museum from 2021 to 2024. They have conceived or contributed to realizing exhibitions in contemporary art centers and art museums in Canada, France, Australia and Aotearoa / New Zealand. Eshrāghi serves as Curator of Indigenous Arts at the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, mentor for the Inuit Futures in Arts Leadership: The Pilimmaksarniq / Pijariuqsarniq Project, and Indigenous Arts committee member for the Conseil des arts de Montréal.

ALEXIE GLASS-KANTOR

Executive Director
Artspace

Alexie Glass-Kantor is a curator and the Executive Director of Artspace, Gadigal Country / Sydney. At Artspace Glass-Kantor oversees an international program supporting co-commissioning, exhibitions, publishing and accessible archives, program of rent-free residencies, and guided the architectural transformation of The Gunnery which reopened in December 2023. She was the curator of DESASTRES, artist Marco Fusinato’s Australian Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale (2022), and since 2015 is the curator of Encounters, the large-scale installation sector at Art Basel | Hong Kong, where she presents significant commissioning and premiere projects. Curating in independent spaces, museums, biennials, and festivals, for over twenty years Glass-Kantor has curated and jointly developed hundreds of collaborative projects, including Jonathan Jones: untitled (transcriptions of country), co-curated with Daria de Beauvais and Michelle Newton at Palais de Tokyo in Paris (2021) and Artspace in Sydney (2023); 경로를 재탐색합니다 UN/LEARNING AUSTRALIA at the Seoul Museum of Art (2021); co-curator with Natasha Bullock of Parallel Collisions the 12th Adelaide Biennial of Contemporary Art(2012); and the Australian curator for the 13th SITE Santa Fe Biennial, New Mexico. As an advocate for the cultural sector Glass-Kantor serves on numerous boards including: Chair, Contemporary Art Organisations of Australia (CAOA) since 2017; Advisory Board, Museum of Contemporary Art & Design (MCAD), De La Salle College of Saint Benilde, Manila; Academic Board, National Art School, Sydney; alongside a program of participating in juries, public programs, symposiums and lectures.

Yolande Zola Zoli van der Heide

Senior Curator
Van Abbemuseum

Yolande Zola Zoli van der Heide’s interests lie in intersecting perspectives and modes that decentre the oppressor in practices of freedom and liberation, to influence art institutional practices. She is senior exhibitions curator at Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, the Netherlands and was previously deputy director at Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons in Utrecht where she began as an intern in 2008. At Van Abbemuseum she is curator to: Positions #7: Everything worthwhile is done with other people (2023); Sung Hwan Kim: Protected by roof and right-hand muscles (2023); A Lasting Truth is Change (2022) and co-editor to the epynomous publication (K. Verlag, Van Abbemuseum, 2022). She is also co-editor to: Laure Prouvost, This Means Love (Lisson Gallery, Van Abbemuseum, 2021); I Think My Body Feels, I Feel My Body Thinks: On Corpoliteracy (Van Abbemuseum, 2022). She has been a tutor at the Dutch Art Institute, Roaming Academy, thesis advisor in the Fine Arts department at the Sandberg Institute, Amsterdam (2016–2019), a member of the editorial board of L’Internationale Online and is a board member at Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam.

CHRISTIAN SKOVBJERG JENSEN

Director
Museum of Contemporary Art Roskilde

Christian Skovbjerg Jensen is a freelance curator and the Director of Museum of Contemporary Art Roskilde, Denmark. He is the former Director of Inter Arts Center, an interdisciplinary platform for artistic research and experimentation at Lunds University, Sweden. He has organized and curated a wide range of public art projects, such as Sit down! (2006) and TUMULT (2010). Later he was one of the curators of the 6th Momentum Biennial (2011) and curated the public art program for Copenhagen Art Festival (2012). In 2019 he was the curator of Struer Tracks.

Angie Chia-Lin Lee

Independent Curator and Founder
ZIMU Culture

Angie Chia-Lin Lee is an independent curator based in Taipei. She graduated from the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at National Taiwan University and the Institute of Contemporary Art & Social Thoughts at the China Academy of Art. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Fine Arts at Taipei National University of the Arts. Her research focuses on the culture, media, and art developed and created in the digital era. Lee is the founder of ZIMU CULTURE, a studio dedicated to producing contemporary art exhibitions and publishing artist books. Her recent curatorial projects include the Digital Art Festival Taipei (2023), Sensation (Remix) (2023), Request for Comments (2022), BONK (2022), Hsu Ching Yuan Model House Project (2021), Allegories of the Ocean (2020), and From/To: The Frontier of Chinese Art Education (2018).

MARK O'GORMAN

Visual Arts Manager
The Complex

Mark O’Gorman is the inaugural curator and producer of visual art at The Complex, a multi-disciplinary arts centre in Dublin's north inner city, since 2018. Comprising seventeen artist studios, a large warehouse performance space and a gallery, The Complex brings a diverse range of arts practitioners and audiences together in a dynamic urban environment. The exhibition program focuses on commissioning site-specific work with a prolonged developmental process and conversational approach with artists, with an emphasis on community building, encouraging experimentation and risk.

JO-LENE ONG

Independent Curator and Program Advisor
12th Seoul Mediacity Biennale

Jo-Lene Ong is an independent curator based in the Netherlands and Malaysia. She is a program advisor for the 12th Seoul Mediacity Biennale and teaches at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam. Her practice engages with counter colonial ways of knowing, sensing, and organising. Jo-Lene's long term research on ecologies of resilience across and beyond Asia and its diaspora has been advanced through a residency at Delfina Foundation, London and the Ishibashi Foundation/Japan Foundation Fellowship for Research on Japanese Art. Recent projects include Other Futures, Amsterdam; Elsewheres Within Here, Framer Framed; SUNSHOWER: Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia 1980s to Now, Mori Art Museum and National Art Center, Tokyo; and Practice Space, a volume on approaches to "the local" by art initiatives operating outside of conventional frameworks published by De Appel, Amsterdam and NAME Publications, Miami. Previously she managed mapKL, a platform in Kuala Lumpur offering space for contemporary ideas.

GERDA PALIUŠYTĖ

Artist, Curator at Meno Avilys Cinematheque.

Gerda Paliušytė (b. 1987) is a Vilnius-based artist and curator. She is interested in various documentary practices, historical and popular culture phenomena and characters, and their relationship to social reality. Paliušytė is one of the curators at the Meno Avilys Cinematheque and is one of the initiators and curators of Montos Tattoo project space. Paliušytė's works (films and photography) often explore different forms of intimacy and the magic and fragility of collective existence. Recent solo and dual exhibitions include We Live in Places (with Gabija Nedzinskaitė) at the former Institute of Physics in Vilnius, LT; Lavender Opener Chair Gallery, Tokyo JP; and Prospect Gallery, Vilnius LT. Paliušytė received the 2020 Rupert – Lithuanian Culture Institute – Somerset House Studios Residency Award.

JOSIEN PIETERSE

Co-Founder and Co-Director
Framer Framed

Josien is, together with Cas Bool, founder and co-director of Framer Framed. Framer Framed is a platform for art and culture, with an exhibition space in Amsterdam. Their exhibitions are located at the intersection of contemporary art, visual culture and politics. The exhibitions present work by known and unknown artists, who are active worldwide and address social issues. When organizing exhibitions, Framer Framed offers a platform to both established curators and new names. In addition to each exhibition, an in-depth, interdisciplinary public program takes place, consisting of artist talks, lectures, film screenings, performances and publications. In 2018 Framer Framed opened an art and community space ‘Werkplaats Molenwijk’ for the Molenwijk neighborhood in Amsterdam North. Each year Werkplaats Molenwijk offers artist in residence for two artists to work on new projects. In addition to many public symposia, Josien realized more than 60 exhibitions on behalf of Framer Framed, including the first Dutch pavilion at the 14th Gwanju Biennale in South Korea with various international guest curators. Josien Pieterse was founder and ten years director of Network Democracy, a platform for democratic innovation. In 2014, she received the oeuvre prize, ‘Radical Innovators’, from the journalistic magazine Vrij Nederland for her work with Network Democracy.

TAIYANA PIMENTEL

Director
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey – MARCO

Taiyana Pimentel is a curator of contemporary art and the Director of Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey (MARCO). Prior, Pimentel severed as the Director of Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros and La Tallera in Mexico City since 2009. She conceived and coordinated the renovation project of La Tallera in Cuernavaca, Morelos. She has curated a series of exhibitions such as No Lone Zone-The Redeeming Institution, a collaboration between SAPS and Tate Modern, London-Mexico City; Institutional Empowerment with Colectivo Tercerunquinto at Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Mexico; Injured: Project for Ecatepec, Fundación Colección Jumex, Mexico; 1549 State’s Crimes, Santiago Sierra, Centro Cultural Tlatelolco, Mexico; Bridge, Francis Alÿs, La Habana-Key West; Tijuana Sessions: Contemporary Art from Tijuana, Contemporary Art Center Alcalá 31, Madrid, 2005. From 1999 to 2001, she worked at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Rufino Tamayo as the curator of “Sala 7: Proyectos de Arte Contemporáneo”, which included exhibitions of Javier Téllez, Minerva Cuevas; Santiago Sierra or Miguel Calderon. She has a B.A. in Art History from the University of Havana and studied a M.A. in Art History from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

GUINEVERE RAS

Curator
Nederlands Fotomuseum

Guinevere Ras works as a curator at the Nederlands Fotomuseum in Rotterdam. She focuses on decolonizing the narrative space with exhibitions that question and complement the dominant Western narrative. Previously, she was involved in the creation of the Gallery of Honor of Dutch Photography (2021) which is permanently on display, Imagination (2022) and Out of This World | Sanja Marušić (2023). As a freelancer she promotes inclusivity andmultivocality in the cultural sector. Among others, she co-wrote the ‘Guide to researching traces of slavery and the colonial past in collection registration’(2021), published by the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands. Additionally she is a member of the visual arts advisory committee at the Cultuurfonds and member of the Programs Advisory Committee (2025-2028) at Mondriaan Fonds.

Bettina Steinbrügge

Director
Mudam Luxembourg

Bettina Steinbrügge is the Director of Mudam Luxembourg, Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean. From 2014–2022, she was the director of Kunstverein in Hamburg. She directed Halle für Kunst Lüneburg, was curator at La Kunsthalle Mulhouse and senior curator and collection director at the Belvedere in Vienna. She has taught at Leuphana University Lüneburg and HEAD in Geneva. From 2014–2022 she was Professor of Art Theory at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste (HfbK) in Hamburg. From 2007–2017 she was a member of the program team of the Forum Expanded at the Berlin International Film Festival.

HELENA TOBIN

Artistic Director
South Tipperary Arts Centre

Helena Tobin is a curator and artist based in Ireland. Since 2019 she has been Artistic Director and Curator at South Tipperary Arts Centre (STAC) where she has developed exciting and diverse arts programming, bringing the best of contemporary arts practice to a region which is predomently rural. Supporting and nurting artists, developing and challenging audiences and engaging with communities is central to her curatorial ethos with a strong focus on the value and importance of high quality arts programming in regional and rural locations. With 20 years experience working in the Arts, Helena has expertise in developing and delivering a range of ambitious projects and has worked across a broad section of the Arts including, the Abbey Theatre, Kilkenny Arts Festival, Fenton Gallery, Cork and was co-founder and director of SITEATION, an artists-led project space (formerly located in Dublin). During her time at the Fenton Gallery, Cork she was also assistant editor and project coordinator for the publication ‘Representing Art in Ireland’. She is a graduate of the MA in Visual Art Practices, IADT and the BA in Fine Art from Crawford College of Art and Design. Her own artwork has been exhibited throughout Ireland and is in the public collections of the OPW and Cork Institute of Technology.

YESOMI UMOLU

Director of Curatorial Affairs and Public Practice
Serpentine Galleries

Yesomi Umolu is Director of Curatorial Affairs and Public Practice at Serpentine in London. She recently co-organisedSerpentine Pavilion 2022: Black Chapel by Theaster Gates and Barbara Chase-Riboud: Infinite Folds (2022), the first survey of the artist in Europe. As Artistic Director of the 2019 Chicago Architecture Biennial titled ...and other such stories (2019-20), Umolu oversaw a critically acclaimed curatorial program featuring new commissions and off-site installations with over 80 international contributors. Umolu has developed key solo exhibitions and publications with Assemble, Ursula Biemann and Paulo Tavares, John Akomfrah, Mike Cloud, Mariana Castillo Deball, Kapwani Kiwanga, Candice Lin, Harold Mendez, Camille Norment, Karthik Pandian and Andros Zins-Browne, among others. She was previously Director and Curator, Logan Center Exhibitions at the University of Chicago, where she also taught courses in visual art and spatial practices as a lecturer in the humanities division. Prior to joining the University of Chicago, she held curatorial positions at the MSU Broad Museum, Michigan; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and Manifesta 8, the European Biennial of Contemporary Art. Umolu is a 2016 recipient of the prestigious Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts Curatorial Fellowship. Umolu has served as reviewer and juror for major artist residencies and granting organizations including Artadia, Core Residency Program, Creative Capital, and The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. She served on the curatorial advisory board for the United States Pavilion at the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale. She was a trustee of the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts in Chicago. Umolu holds an MA, with distinction, from the Royal College of Art in London and a MA (Hons.) from the University of Edinburgh.

Lucrezia Calabrò Visconti

Chief Curator
Pinacoteca Agnelli

Lucrezia Calabrò Visconti is a curator and art writer. Since 2022 she is the Chief Curator of Pinacoteca Agnelli, Turin, where she recently curated new commissions by Lucy McKenzie and Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster (both 2023). For Pinacoteca Agnelli, she co-curated monographic shows such as Lee Lozano. Strike (at Pinacoteca Agnelli and La Bourse – Pinault Collection, Paris, 2023-24) and Sylvie Fleury. Turn Me On (2022); and projects by artists such as Shirin Aliabadi, Nina Beier, Mark Leckey, Aljcia Kwade, Cally Spooner, Julius Von Bismarck amongst others. Other exhibitions by Calabrò Visconti include Motherless Daughters, at VIN VIN for “curated by”, Vienna (2023); Get Rid of Yourself (Ancora Ancora Ancora), Fondazione Baruchello, Rome (2019); Abstract Sex. We don’t have any clothes, only equipment, Artissima, Turin (2019); Good Luck, See You After the Revolution, UvA, Amsterdam (2017); Why Is Everybody Being So Nice?, De Appel and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2017); and Dear Betty: Run Fast, Bite Hard!, GAMeC, Bergamo (2016). In 2018 she curated the 6th Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, Abracadabra, and co-founded the collective platform The School of the End of Time. From 2018 to 2021 she worked at Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo as curator and tutor of a research-based residency program for international curators, and she lectured in Italy and Europe. Her texts have been published in catalogues and journals and she has curated publications including Lee Lozano. Strike (2023); Sylvie Fleury. Turn Me On (2022); Shifting Views on Italian Art (2021); and The New Work Times (2018). She was trained in visual arts at IUAV in Venice, in curatorial studies at De Appel, Amsterdam, and Campo, FSRR, Turin, and in critical theory at the University of Milano-Bicocca. She is co-founder and currently vice president of AWI - Art Workers Italia, the first association advocating for the rights of art workers in Italy.

Zoe Chia-Jung Yeh

Director and Curator
Hong-Gah Museum

Zoe Chia-Jung Yeh is the director and curator of the Honggah Museum. She studied Curating and Cultural Production in the Institute of Trans-disciplinary Arts of National Taipei University of the Arts. She also received a BA degree in National Cheng-Chi University Commerce School. Yeh has actively contributed to the arts community as a board member of Polymer Art Studio and has been involved in various projects within artist-run spaces. In addition to her involvement in community projects, Zoe Yeh also spearheads research on Taiwanese video artists and curates annual solo exhibitions for emerging talents.