Dr Laura Vallés-Vílchez
- Tutor (Research)
- Curating Contemporary Art MA
Laura is a cultural worker operating at the intersection between editing, curating, writing, translating and educating within the expanded field of the visual arts.
Laura's academic work focuses on post-representational curating from an intersectional feminist perspective.
In 2021, she was appointed UK Creative Director of the 4Cs From Conflict to Conviviality through Creativity and Culture project. Activities include the exhibition Adam Khalil & Bayley Sweitzer with Oba: Nosferasta at Gasworks, curated with CCA alumnus Sabel Galvaldon, the film programme Sensible Grounds: That's How We Undo It at LUX, curated with Azar Mahmoudian, as well as seminars and workshops. Laura's research is nourished by the labour she does as co-founder and director of Concreta: a Spanish non-profit organisation that publishes a peer-reviewed journal as well as a series of books since 2012.
Gallery
More information
Research interests
Laura is interested in curating as a practice of embodied criticism, mobilising affects, and how to define the cultural institution as an instigator of a new social contract in the expanded field of contemporary cultural activity. Mining the often-strained relations between labour, cultural workers and institutional activism, her practice-led PhD (RCA, 2022) argues that curating can contribute to learning from past experiences and claim, a ‘curatela', a sensitive middle ground to shape a set of common practices where the desire to interact with one another defines the set of conditions from which to collectively operate. The post-francoist Spanish context serves as the framework of this investigation; and ‘Editing’, ‘Storytelling’ and ‘Caring’ are the three chapters putting to work experiences with history.
Practice
As a curator, she has organised exhibitions such as Teresa Lanceta: Weaving as an Open Source at MACBA and IVAM (co-curator, 2022–23), Across the Sand at Azkuna Zentroa, Artium and CentroCentro (2019–20), Xisco Mensua. 15,600 Days at CCCC (co-curator, 2019) and It's Your Turn at EACC (2018). She was appointed the Artistic Director of the Myths of the Near Future Biennial at TEA (2019–20). Laura has participated in lectures and workshops at institutions such as the Royal Academy of Arts (London), SOAS (London), The Institute for Endotic Research (Berlin), the University of Granada (Granada) and La Casa Encendida (Madrid) as well as translated authors including Donna Haraway, Moyra Davey and Paul B. Preciado.
Research funding
Laura's research has been supported by a Botin Foundation Grant for Curatorial Studies (2016–18).
Publications, exhibitions and other outcomes
Contributing writer (selection)
'Outside Witness: On the Historical Reception of the Potosí Principle', The Principio Potosí Archive, Berlin: Koenig Books, 2022
'Across the Sand', AMA, 00, Artium, 2020
'Archiving Voices: Collection and Collaboration in Spanish Contemporary Art', Photographies Journal,Routledge, 2020
'Between Modernity and Tradition', Camera Austria 141, 2018; 'From the Tangle to the Spider's Web. On Stimulants: Circulation and Euphoria', Concreta, 09, 2017
'Gently Revealing, Caring Hard, All Touching', in Anarchivo Sida, San Sebastián: Tabakalara, 2017
'Somewhere Between Art and the World', Fundaçao Bienal de Sao Paulo, 2014; 'Murmur in the White Cube: On Iman Issa's Work', Concreta, 06, 2015
'Aspen: the magazine in a box (1965–1971)', Concreta,01, 2013
Editor (selection)
Vallés Vílchez, L.: Myths of the Near Future, Tenerife: TEA, 2022
Thiel, T., Hoste, A. and Enguita, N., Anna Boghiguian: A Short Long History. Sometimes Unexpectedly the Present meets the Past, Berlin: Koenig Books (2022)
Enguita, N. and Buci-Glucksmann, C.: Per Amor a L'Art Collection. Ornament=Crime?, Valencia: Bombas Gens, 2017
Wells, L., París, N. and Cortés Rocca, P.: Bleda y Rosa. A Geography of Time, Valencia: Bombas Gens, 2017
Translator (selection)
Terranova, F., Donna Haraway: Story Telling for Earthly Survival (film), Atelier Graphoui, 2017
Davey, M., Quema los diarios, Valencia: Concreta, 2020
Preciado, Paul B., A Voice for Eraso. Epilogue for a Trans Time, Bilbao: Azkuna Zentroa, 2022