Meet and greet CPR fellows of 2024

As part of our ongoing International Visitor Programme, we are pleased to host the The Curatorial Program for Research (CPR) in Bergen. Together with Bergen Assembly we invite you for a meet and greet with the visiting curators. Each curator will give a short presentation about their curatorial practice. After the presentations we welcome you to stay for an informal conversation and light foods.

CPR fellows in 2024 are: Isra Al Kassi (Sweden / Iraq / UK), Rose Bouthillier (Canada), Kholisile Dhliwayo (Australia / USA), Azar Mahmoudian Esfahani (Iran), Tina Petersone (Latvia), Samuele Piazza (Italy), Talia Smith (Australia), Larisa Zmud (Argentina).

CPR – The Curatorial Program for Research has facilitated an international network of curators, artists and institutions since 2015. The 2024 edition titled ‘Who is Being Heard?’ is organized by CPR Founding Director Carmen Ferreyra; Europe Director Susanne Ewerlöf; with key local specialists: Ruben Steinum (Director, Office for Contemporary Art, Norway), Lena Malm (Head of IASPIS Visual Arts Program), Mariangela Méndez Prencke (Director, Havremagasinet Länskonsthall Boden), and Kati Laakso (Director, Finnish Cultural Institute of New York).

Through the expertise of key local collaborators, and complemented by readings about local socio-political history, curators will partake in a conceptually connected program of visits to artist studios and art institutions – an immersive introduction to the artistic practice, production, and dissemination in the host locations and an opportunity to connect with peers.

Isra Al Kassi

(UK) is a London based curator, writer and co-founder of T A P E collective; a cross-art curatorial collective on a mission to demystify the industry and to represent could-be-cult classic moving image work through special curation, production and distribution. With a background in events & marketing Isra is also an outreach and audience development consultant, and has a particular interest in mindful audience growth and creating accessible spaces for mixed-heritage storytellers and audiences. Her practice heavily explores spaces, and being inventive in the ways of how things can be displayed and presented. Isra's passion is cross-arts curation centering moving image work and playing with the boundaries of the archive, with the main intention to make it more accessible. Her curatorial background is primarily self-taught, and comes from a desire to create inclusive and alternative spaces and to present experiences and events in alternative spaces. Since co-founding T A P E Collective, Isra continues to develop her practice by always wishing to try new things, and to experiment; pushing the boundaries of traditional ways of curating, and developing ways of curating collaboratively, with peers and a local and global community.

Rose Bouthillier

(Canada) is a contemporary art curator and writer based in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Throughout her career, her focus has been on working closely with artists to develop and present new projects, promoting under-recognized voices and creating thoughtful inter-generational dialogues. Bouthillier joined Bonavista Biennale as Artistic Director in April 2022, and co-curated the 2023 edition, Host, with Ryan Rice. The Biennale takes place on Newfoundland’s Bonavista Peninsula, embedding contemporary art in the landscapes, historic spaces and daily places of rural communities. Previously, Bouthillier served as Curator (Exhibitions) at Remai Modern, in Saskatoon, Canada, where she programmed solo exhibitions by Puppies Puppies (Jade Guanaro Kuriki-Olivo), Zadie Xa, and Walter Scott, and the presentation of new works by respectfulchild, Julie Oh, Jeneen Frei Njootli, Faye HeavyShield and Laurie Kang. Her writing has been published in monographs on artists including Tony Lewis, Xavier Cha, Kirk Mangus and Michelle Grabner, as well as in magazines and journals including CURA., C Magazine, BlackFlash, Foam Magazine, esse, and frieze. She is the editor of a forthcoming monograph on Puppies Puppies (Jade Guanaro Kuriki-Olivo), co-published by moCa Cleveland, Remai Modern, and Kunsthaus Glarus.

Kholisile Dhliwayo

(Australia / USA) is an African-Australian curator, artist, and architect whose work engages Black Diasporic knowledge systems and cultural practices. Kholisile founded afrOURban, a non-profit organization dedicated to documenting and celebrating Black culture in the diaspora and on the African continent. At afrOURban, he is the curator of Black Diasporas, an oral-narrative mapping project documenting spaces that have meaning to Black people. Black Diasporas has won awards from the Victorian Government (Australia), the New School Good Interventions (USA), and ArchiTeam (Australia) for its innovation and social contributions. Kholisile is a 2023-24 Cheng Fellow with the Social Innovation Change Initiative - Harvard Kennedy School, and a 2023 Center for Architecture Lab Resident, where he curated ‘Making Home: Affirming Black Diasporic Agency’. He co-curated the award-winning Melbourne Design Week exhibitions SAY IT LOUD Naarm-Melbourne (2022) and Perspectives (2023). He is also the artist behind the Brooklyn Bronzes sculptures at the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art (MOCADA), honoring Black Brooklyn community leaders. As a built environment professional, Kholisile has contributed to projects in Australia, Canada, and the USA, including La Guardia Airport Terminal B, The Javits Center, The Canadian Senate Building, and David Geffen Hall at the Lincoln Center.

Azar Mahmoudian

(Iran) is an independent curator and educator, living and working in Tehran and partly Berlin. Among her projects are multi-chapter program of moving image practices, Sensible Grounds, including Inhale (Fundación Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona), That’s How We Undo It (Lux, London), Tuning into the Rhythms of the Chronic (Nida Art Colony, Neringa/Lithuania); Communities of Oblivion (Bétonsalon, Paris); Tectonics of Camaraderie (Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm), the exhibition and conversation series When Legacies Become Debts (The Mosaic Rooms, London), program of seminars, residencies and production grants, Shifting Panoramas (TMOCA and various off-spaces in Tehran, KW, DAZ and feldfünf, Berlin). She was part of the curatorial team of 11th Gwangju Biennial. She initiated and directed a shape-changing art school between Tehran, Armenian mountains, and other rural places in the region and co-organised kaf, a collective study space in Tehran. Both platforms refrain from having an online presence. She has been a lecturer at art academies in Iran and internationally, and is currently PhD fellow at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna.

Tīna Pētersone

(Latvia) is an independent curator with an MFA in Curating from Goldsmiths, University of London. In 2020, Pētersone received the "Young Curator!" prize at the Riga Photography Biennial, and in 2021 she co-founded TUR, where her exhibition program included two shows nominated for the Purvītis Prize. In 2022, she undertook a residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, selected by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia, followed by a residency at the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago, USA. In 2023, Pētersone was awarded the Baltic Fellowship to contribute to the Performa Biennial in New York City. Her most recent projects include a guest curator role for ETC. Magazine and an exhibition at the Ljubljana Art Weekend, showcasing artists from the Baltics to the Balkans. Pētersone continually enhances her expertise through participation in short-term curatorial programs at institutions such as the Salzburg Summer Academy, Stockholm University of the Arts, the University of Gothenburg, International Summer School of Photography in Riga, and Lokomotiva Skopje, among others. Her ongoing focus is on facilitating opportunities and increasing visibility for artists and art professionals, emphasizing cultural exchanges that connect the Baltics with global artistic communities.

Samuele Piazza

(Italy) is Chief Curator at OGR Torino. For the institution he has been responsible for the visual arts program and he has commissioned and curated several projects: he curated solo exhibitions by artists Mike Nelson, Maria Hassabi, Monica Bonvicini, Nina Canell, Sarah Sze as well as group shows like “Vogliamo Tutto”, “Mutating bodies, imploding stars” and “Dancing is what we make of falling”. He is currently working on “Retinal Rivalry”, a solo show by Cyprien Gaillard and on a new publication on the work of P Staff, on the occasion of their solo show “Full Rotation”. Piazza received a MA in Visual Arts from Iuav University in Venice and a MA in Aesthetics from CRMEP, Kingston University in London. He was 2015-16 Helena Rubinstein Fellow of the Whitney Museum ISP.

Talia Smith

(New Zealand / Australia) is an artist and curator from Aotearoa who is now based in Sydney, Australia. Her curatorial practice focuses on First Nations photographic, moving image and archival practices with a particular interest in how artists are reclaiming the colonial tool of the camera. She has curated exhibitions for organisations such as Primavera for the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Singapore International Photography Festival, IMA, UTS Gallery, Ballarat Foto Biennale and Cement Fondu among others. Her writing has appeared in various publications such as Memo Review, Art New Zealand and artist catalogue essays and books, in 2022 she was nominated for Best Art Writing by a New Zealand Maori or Pasifika in the AAANZ awards. Talia was chair of Runway Journal 2017-18 and is currently a board member at Bus Projects and on the editorial committee for Un Projects. She has completed research residencies in Singapore and Germany and currently works as the Coordinator of Programming at Blacktown Arts.

Larisa Zmud

(Argentina) As a curator based in Argentina, Zmud uses curating to explore gender and food politics to address social justice and equity. Zmud grew up nomadic, living between coastal city of Mar del Plata and Patagonian Steppe, where her father was a rural teacher in Mapuche communities.Currently, she lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where experiences of multi-diverse ways of living influence her practice. Zmud has a Degree in Art Curating (BA), a Master's degree in Politics and Gender Studies (BA) In 2014, Zmud attended the Artists, Critics, and Curators Program of Torcuato Di Tella University by Ines Katzenstein. She founded Sin Destino Aparente, critical thinking groups with gender perspective. From 2020-21, Zmud was a member of Argentine National Directorate of Cultural Policies Ministry for Equality for Women, Gender and Diversity. Zmud is part of feminist collective Belleza y Felicidad Fiorito where she coordinates Comedor Gourmet, an artistic and gastronomic space that redefines nutrition as a way of thinking about politics of bodies and desire. Zmud coordinates Mapa Contemporáneo de Arte Argentino en Construcción, created in CIMAM 2023 Annual Conference. She was resident of 2024 KADIST program. Through exhibitions, public lectures, curatorial projects, she creates new methodologies of access to knowledge.