VAI Invites New Institutional Approaches to Curating
Questions Facing Visual Arts Institutions in the Contemporary World.
The inaugural Visual Artists Ireland annual curatorial presentation on the relationship between the artist, the art, the institution, the curator, and the audience.
Online, Tuesday 16 September 2025, 10am to 4pm.
You are invited to participate in New Institutional Approaches to Curating – a one-day online gathering of leading curators addressing the evolving role of the institution in contemporary practice.
We have invited five distinguished voices from major European institutions to present their reflections on commissioning, mediation, and the frameworks sustaining artistic production. This will be a closed-door session designed to facilitate serious exchange and considered dialogue among peers.
Programme
10:00 — John Kenneth Paranada, Curator of Art and Climate Change, Sainsbury Centre, University of East Anglia
11:00 — Linsey Young, Curator of Women in Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK 1970–1990
12:00 — John Uriarte, Curator of POV at Tabakalera, International Center of Contemporary Culture, San Sebastian
14:00 — Lucia Pietroiusti — Head of Ecologies at Serpentine
15:00 — Aliyah Hasnin — Co-curator of The Past is Now at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
In responding to current political, ecological, and technological uncertainties, the invited curators are each thinking differently about exhibitions and institutions, while working to address the changing needs of their communities.
This includes rethinking institutional histories and collections, addressing environmental change, engaging with emerging technologies, and developing new models of public engagement.
We anticipate that this conference will be of interest to anyone interested in emerging critical debate on the future of curatorial practice, both independent and within institutions.
Spaces are limited, so that we can encourage conversation and freedom to engage, therefore the event will be a strictly pre-booked and ticketed event.
Speaker Biographies
John Kenneth Paranada is a British-Filipino curator, critic, researcher, and writer. He is the inaugural Curator of Art and Climate Change at the Sainsbury Centre, University of East Anglia, and a researcher at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. His practice positions museums as agents of climate action and social change, working across art, science, and policy.
Linsey Young is an independent curator and writer whose work focuses on feminist and socially engaged exhibition-making. She is the curator of the major touring exhibition, Women in Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK 1970–1990. Conceived during her tenure as Curator of British Contemporary Art at Tate, the exhibition is the first major institutional survey of feminist art in the UK.
Jon Uriarte is an independent curator, researcher and educator. He was Digital Curator at The Photographers’ Gallery in London, where he developed programmes and exhibitions at the intersection of photography, networked culture, and technological change. His work addresses the impact of digital platforms, AI, and new media tools for the production, circulation, and reception of images. Uriarte has curated Getxophoto International Image Festival, a festival taking place on the streets and unconventional spaces of Getxo in Spain. He currently curates POV, a monthly meet-up on digital cultures at Tabakalera, International Center of Contemporary Culture, in San Sebastian, Spain.
Lucia Pietroiusti is a curator, programmer and strategist, and is Head of Ecologies at Serpentine, London, where she founded the General Ecology project and the Ecologies department. Working on research and experimentation at the intersection of art, ecology and systems, she was the curator of Sun & Sea (Venice Biennale, 2019, and international tour); and the co-editor of the More-than-Human (2020) and The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish (2025).
Aliyah Hasnin is a London-based curator, writer, and filmmaker whose work focuses on decolonial approaches to history and the present. She co-curated the acclaimed exhibition The Past is Now at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, as well as projects at Eastside Projects and Ort Gallery. Alongside curating, she produces films, writes, and develops creative strategies, with a practice centred on care, community, and reimagining possibilities.