Irene Campolmi
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about

feminist bio

Instead of a work bio, I decided write a feminist bio inspired by Paola Bacchetta, a scholar specialised in postcolonial and feminist theories, who emphasizes the importance of situating oneself before beginning to write or talk (see http://www.internationaleonline.org/dialogues/11_who_is_speaking).

Thanks to Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez for sharing her precious knowledge in her text “Washing whiteness in art institutions” (e-flux) which inspired me to write a feminist biography.

I will briefly situate myself: 
I am a white woman, born in Poggibonsi, a town in the mid of the Chiantishire in Tuscany, Italy in a mixed working- and middle-class family. Since I was a child, I had an innate admiration for the art and culture that would surround me in public squares, buildings, but also museums. My mum told me I was 4 when I first expressed admiration for a painting, the "Blue House" by Marc Chagall, which I saw in a temporary show in Pisa, on a rainy Sunday evening of my childhood. Whether that has been a threshold for a revelation, I don't know, but I like to think something changed since then. Thus, I began exploring the feelings that encountering and producing art would give me.


I left Italy as soon as I could after the studies because my family couldn't pay me to go studying abroad. I felt I was thinking more than the space I had. Since then, I have never really stopped travelling and being immersed in art and artistic practice.

​I am able-bodied, even though I experienced being on a wheel-chair after a bike accident and that experience changed my understanding of life priorities. I have two university degrees in contemporary art and history of exhibitions and museology. A few years ago, I began a PhD research on the ethics of curating and researching in art institutions, which is still undergoing and which I hope to conclude soon (even though it evolves organically as life changes).

I constantly receive comments about my hand gestures when I am speaking other languages, and my Italian accent is noticeable in any of the foreign languages I speak. But I decided to stop performing a British or an American accent and not deny the place where I come from. I don't identify myself with a national identity but I feel close and recognized by communities of people that believe in the agency of people and in the power of revolutionary thoughts (and actions).

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-Irene Campolmi

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If you want a work biography, this is it:

Over the past ten years, I have worked as a curator and a researcher both independently and for art institutions, curating large-scale exhibitions, conferences and public programs. In 2019, I will curate a major exhibition of Jesper Just’s works at MAAT Museum Art Architecture and Technology, Lisbon and Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen. I will also co-curate Kris Lemsalu’s exhibition in the 58th Venice Biennial Estonian Pavilion together with Andrew Berardini, Sarah Lucas and Tamara Luuk. 
In 2018, I have curated two collective shows: “Re-Routing Nature” at SixtyEight Art Institute (Copenhagen) which looked at the notion of ecology in a world increasingly ruled by technology; and “#whatif” at Kunsthal Charlottenborg (Copenhagen), which reflected on radical socio-political projects of our contemporary society.
I have curated two editions of the Code Art Fair artistic program: “Art Reacts” (2017), which opened a discussion on how artistic and curatorial practice reacts to socio-political events proposing new ways to look at and experience the world; and "Performing Identities" (2108) that reflects on the body as a territory to define political identity.
I am also completing a PhD on contemporary curatorial practice at the University of Aarhus with a thesis that explores the entanglement between ethics and research in curating. I have co-organised and coordinated the international symposium “Between the DISCURSIVE and the IMMERSIVE”  at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (Denmark). I have worked as a researcher for the Max Planck Institute- Kunsthistorisches Institute in Florence, and as a curator for the Italian Embassy in Copenhagen and as assistant curator at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome. I am part of some research networks with universities and museums including the Hamburger Bahnhof Berlin and the Frie Universitet (Germany). I have collaborated with the Danish Pavilion at the 57th La Biennale di Venezia as a translator.

I am based in Copenhagen when I am not somewhere else travelling.
Picture
"Between the DISCURSIVE and the IMMERSIVE: A Symposium on research in the 21st Century Art Museums", Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 3-4 December 2015. Ph: Klaus Holsting.

The image above is extracted by Basim Magdy's solo show "M.A.G.N.E.T." at MAAT, Museum Art Architecture and Technology in Lisbon (2019), which I co-curated with Inês Grosso.


Interests

Art Curating & Exhibitions History
Performance
Artistic practices reflecting on ecology and climate change 
Gender studies
Curatorial Ethics 
Queerism
​Postcolonialism

Hobbies

Yoga
Running (Danish weather permitted!)
Travelling ....and travelling even more.
​Piano 
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  • About
  • CURATORIAL PROJECTS
  • Publications
  • Talks
  • CONFERENCES & RESEARCH NETWORKS
  • PRESS
  • AWARDS
  • Contact