The participants of the Young Curators Residency Programme are selected among recent alumnae and alumni of the most renowned programmes for curators worldwide. The biographies listed in this page are updated to the year in which the curators participated to the Young Curators Residency Programme Madrid.

• Ludovica Bulciolu
  Ludovica Bulciolu is an Italian-French curator based in London. She is interested in how musical and folkloric traditions disseminate and unfold in the popular cultures and habits of a place. Looking at particular geographies, she is interested in how the body, as the main receptacle and creator of sound, can become a place of healing, care and resistance. Currently Associate Curator of San Mei Gallery, she also works independently with artists and institutions including Harlesden High Street. She previously worked as Director Assistant of SAM Art Projects (Paris) and Galleria Continua (Beijing). Ludovica holds a MA Curating Contemporary Art from the Royal College of Art, London, where she curated an online exhibition in collaboration with Gasworks; a MA in Art History of East Asian Art from Paris Sorbonne; a BA in Art History from Bordeaux University and the Lisbon NOVA University.

  Edition 2022
• Marta Cacciavillani
  Marta Cacciavillani (Italy, 1991) is a curator, writer, and editor based in Milan. Her current research traces forgotten and silenced histories of political resistance and collective learning. She is particularly interested in time-based practices that sit at the intersection of literature, popular culture, and technology, with an emphasis on engaging queer, and decolonial discourse. Cacciavillani has held curatorial positions at Art in General, New York; The Vera List Center for Art and Politics, New York; and Serpentine Galleries, London, among others. Between 2015 and 2017, she was managing editor of the online journal, aCCeSsions. She has curated exhibitions, film screenings, performances, and panels at institutions including Anthology Film Archives, P! Gallery, The Knockdown Center, and ISCP, all in New York; NYUAD Art Gallery, Abu Dhabi; the Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson; and LimeWharf, London.  She holds a BA from Central Saint Martins in Criticism, Communication and Curation of Art and Design, London; and an MA from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, New York.

  Edition 2020
• Laura Castro
  Laura Castro is a Dominican artist and curator based in the Dominican Republic. Through her artistic and curatorial practice, Castro investigates notions of identity, engaging with nature and history. She is co-founder and co-director of the artist-run hybrid platform Sindicato and an alumni of De Appel Curatorial Program ’20-21′ in Amsterdam, NL. Her most recent project is Dark Black, a publication in progress that revisits the history of the partition of the island of Quisqueya, present day Haiti and the Dominican Republic, to engage in its reconstruction through capacities of doubt, feeling, and imagination. Conceived from the premise of land as self, the project studies the possibility of narrative systems that transcend merely human discourse, hence affirming the multiple latent ancestries and phenomenal legacies erased by the dominating historical fables.

  Edition 2022
• Lxo Cohen
  Lxo Cohen (UK) is a London-based curator whose research interests explore histories, theories and practices current to performance, identity politics and the intersections of queer and decolonial thinking. Cohen is currently involved in Windows into Worlds, an ongoing collaborative research project with a team of performance theorists, researchers, academics and curators between the UK, US and Singapore presenting audiovisual exhibitions and installations showcasing new connections between performance and digital video alongside open ‘video labs’. Cohen worked as an assistant curator at the CAC Vilnius and as Heidi Ballet’s research curator for The Morality Reflex (2016), an exhibition addressing body politics and morality as something corporeal, its research surveying moments like the AIDS crisis, the history of birth control, and witch hunts in 15th century Europe, when moral values were being questioned and redefined. Cohen has independently and collaboratively organised exhibitions and performances at 310 New Cross (2018), Goldsmiths CCA (2018), Chisenhale Studios (2018), DKUK (2016), Guest Projects (2012). Cohen is also a member of the London-based curatorial collective To Whom This May Concern.

  Edition 2020
• Lovro Japundžić
  Lovro Japundžić is a curator and producer based in Zagreb, Croatia. He currently works as a co-director at Miroslav Kraljevic Gallery (GMK), an independent and non-profit art platform and gallery. Since 2019 he’s been working at Mocvara Gallery doing site-specific installations and performances which combine playful and often confrontational approach towards normative structures. He is part of the curatorial collective that runs the international photography festival Organ Vida, mainly focused on image – its production, circulation, and consumption, heavily influenced by digital turnover. In 2018/2019 he participated as a curator in Parallel – European platform for contemporary photography. In 2021/2022 he was part of CuratorLab 2021/2022 at Konstfack, University of Arts, Crafts and Design. Between 2013-2019 he worked as a program selector of the Association for the Promotion of Independent Music Culture – Ziva Muzika, active in promoting innovative approaches to club music.

  Edition 2023
• Akis Kokkinos
  Akis Kokkinos (b. Greece) is an independent curator living between London and Chios Island. Over the last nine years, Akis has worked for major cultural institutions in the UK and Greece, private collections, as well as independent projects.
  Akis’ practice is focused on ways to disrupt the ‘objective’ and institutional by introducing or supporting other less appreciated and recognised forms of knowledge. Through multidisciplinary discourses, eco-feminist, non-western approaches, and other non- rational thoughts and philosophies, his practice focuses on the less spoken, invisible or liminal.
  He studied the MA Curating contemporary art at the Royal College of Art (2018-2020), fully funded by the NEON scholarship, the Schilizzi Foundation, and the RCA continuation fund.
  In 2021, Akis was awarded the DYCP by Arts Council England, worked as a visiting lecturer at the Royal College of Art and was selected for the Young Curators Residency Programme of Sandretto Foundation in Madrid, Spain. During the same year, he also set up DEO projects, the first contemporary art organisation in Chios, supporting transnational dialogue and the existing cultural infrastructure on the island.

  Edition 2021
• Emily Markert
  Emily Markert is an arts professional, writer, and curator from and based in New York. She holds a BA from Johns Hopkins University in History and English with Museum Studies and Visual Arts minors, and she received her MA in Curatorial Practice from California College of the Arts in 2021. During her time at CCA, Markert held curatorial internships, fellowships, and research positions with the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, The Jay DeFeo Foundation, the CCA Libraries, and FOR-SITE Foundation. Prior to pursuing her Master’s, she was Manager of Global Communications in the Preferred department at Sotheby’s, where she worked for five years. Currently, she is a Curatorial Assistant at The Jewish Museum, New York; supports strategic projects and administration for cultural consultant András Szántó; and writes for Susan Sheehan Gallery. Markert’s curatorial practice centers on questioning whose stories have been left out of the art historical canon and why, often through a lens of social history.

  Edition 2022
• Una Mathiesen Gjerde
  Una Mathiesen Gjerde is a producer, editor, and curator based in Oslo, Norway. Her research interests and curatorial work is centred around question relating to precariousness, work ethics, and social strategies for togetherness. She has curated exhibitions for institutions such as SALT (Oslo, NO), Studio 17 (Stavanger, NO), Telemark kunstsenter (Skien, NO), and K4 (Oslo, NO), and is currently the director of the artist association and exhibition space BO, The Association of Visual Artists Oslo. Mathiesen Gjerde is a co-founder of the digital art and curatorial network Ergi, and has previously held the position as Head of Production at Fotogalleriet (Oslo, NO), under the directorship of Dr. Antonio Cataldo. She holds an MA in art history from the University of Copenhagen and a BA in cultural entrepreneurship from Uppsala University. Mathiesen Gjerde was a part of CuratorLab 2021/2022 at Konstfack, University of Arts, Crafts and Design.

  Edition 2023
• Yomna Osman
  Yomna Osman (Egypt, 1990) is a curator, writer, and researcher based between California and Cairo. Her research interest lies in the intersection of forced-migration, gentrification, and power dynamics. Her ongoing research investigates contemporary post-conflict landscapes. She is particularly interested in archival and research-based transdisciplinary practices, with an emphasis on de-colonial and speculative discourses. Osman has held curatorial positions at The Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco; KADIST, San Francisco; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; ArteEast, New York, among others. She has curated exhibitions, performances, and screenings at various institutions and edited several books. She holds an BA from the American University in Cairo in International and Public Law; and a dual MA from the California College of Arts in Curatorial Practice and Visual Criticism.

  Edition 2021
• Mijoo Park
  Mijoo Park is an independent curator and researcher based in Seoul, South Korea. She’s been organizing the discursive platform the Bul-teok. Previously she managed the RAT school of ART, a self-directed artist-run school (2014-2021). Her main curatorial practice investigates modes of institutionality and the roles of different organizations in sustainable artistic practices.
  She curated exhibitions and projects including Endless Summer (2020-2021, Seoul and Jeju),  Neither Dark Nor Black (Weekend, Seoul, 2020), Anyang Public Art Project (APAP6, Anyang/assistant curator, 2019), Omni-presence (ONE AND J. +1, Seoul, 2018), and Wishy-washy Bodies (Centre A, Vancouver, 2017) and work as associate curator for Frequencies of Tradition (Incheon Art Platform, 2021- 2022), and grandmothers (Post Territory Ujeongguk, Seoul, 2022). She participated in the 7th Gwangju Biennale International Curator Course (2016), Salzburg Summer Academy (2017), ARKO Creative Academy for Curator (2017), and Mountain School of Arts (2019).

  Edition 2023
• Laura Plant
  Laura Plant (UK, 1992) is a curator, writer and designer based between London and Glasgow. She is interested in addressing communal learning and obscured forms of knowledge through curating. Her research looks at art practices which trace the material compositions and social architecture of trade, biosocial histories and political resistance, cultivating an expanded ecological thinking. In 2019 she completed the MFA Curating at Goldsmiths College having previously studied at Falmouth University. She is currently part of a research group at the Horniman Museum and a member of the curatorial collective To Whom This May Concern, who run a peripatetic programme in London. In an ongoing research project Tending the shy weed, which looks at the transitory lives of plants in a globalised world, she curated a programme at the South London Botanical Institute. Other recent curatorial projects include collaborations with Tenderbooks, Chisenhale Studios, Women’s Art Library, Enclave and activist organisation Platform. She has previously held positions at New Contemporaries (London), Mary Mary (Glasgow) and The Pipe Factory (Glasgow). In 2019 she took part in the Guapamacátaro Art & Ecology research residency in Michoacán, Mexico.

  Edition 2020
• Anushka Rajendran
  Anushka Rajendran is a curator and researcher based in Delhi. Her ongoing curatorial research traces how the notion of “public” has acquired alternative significance to contemporary art in recent years, as well as the aesthetics of engagement within exhibition frameworks. This is informed by her previous research on responses by artists living in India in the 1990s to political and cultural trauma which has since expanded to encompass the South Asia region.
  She is the curator of Prameya Art Foundation, Delhi and other projects include Kochi Muziris Biennale 2018 (India), Asian Art Biennial 2021 (Taiwan), and Colomboscope 2022 (Sri Lanka).

  Edition 2021
• Nikki Nita Ramírez
  Nikki Nita Ramírez is an art advisor, gallerist, and curator based between New York and London. Ramírez is the co-founder and co-director of Danuser & Ramírez, a contemporary art gallery based in London championing emerging artists with underrepresented voices. Ramírez holds a Masters Degree in Curating Contemporary Art from The Royal College of Art.

  Her previous positions have been at The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, The Peggy Guggenheim Collection, and most recently, The Studio Museum in Harlem. Her bachelor’s degree being in Art History and Conservation in Florence, Italy opened a new way of looking at curation in a transhistorical approach. Ramírez’s practice is based on bridging the gap between the ancient antiquities of the Baroque and the contemporary art scene today.

  Edition 2024
• Kaushal Sapre
  Kaushal Sapre is an artist/curator based in Delhi. His work has to do with rethinking the self and the social in everyday technics. He develops web servers, manages an internet radio station, writes software, teaches at a university, stages images, organises gatherings, makes and performs with experimental sound instruments. Previous appearances include Watermans Art Center, London (2023); Kunsthalle Bern (2023); Hangzhou Triennale for Fiber Art (2022); Rockbund Art Museum,Shanghai (2022), Five Million Incidents, Delhi (2020)

  Edition 2024
• Phokeng Setai
  Phokeng Setai is a cultural scholar and independent curator. He recently completed his doctoral dissertation at the University of the Western Cape (South Africa), conducting his research through the Centre for Humanities Research (CHR) and Anthropology Department. Setai’s research focuses on African and African diasporic artistic modes of knowledge production, with a specific emphasis on curatorial practice as an expanded field of intellectual inquiry and creative expression. He is an alumnus of RAW Material Company and Independent Curators’ International (ICI). Previously, Setai worked as a researcher at Zeitz MOCAA, served as a curator at Norval Foundation, and held a board position at the Association of the Visual Arts in Cape Town, South Africa. Setai is also the co-founder and co-curator of Exhibition Match, an ongoing artistic project and socio-cultural intervention aimed at fostering collaboration, communal engagement, community-building, and play within the art world.

  Edition 2024