Manuela Pacella

Manuela Pacella (Rome, 1977) is an art historian and critic. As a freelance curator, she works on cultural exchange between Italy and several countries in Central and Northern Europe. In particular, she is an expert on the art scene in Northern Ireland, where she has worked since 2011 and participated in the ICI Curatorial Intensive at the CCA in Derry and the International Residency at Flax Art Studios in Belfast (both in 2013). In 2017 she was guest curator of the exhibition "Lost in Narration. Riccardo Giacconi, Invernomuto e Luca Trevisani" at MAC in Belfast and led the second Curatorial Directions exploring the importance of text, narration and storytelling in the context of exhibition making with workshops and talks in Belfast and Milan.

In 2015 and 2016 she was Editorial Researcher and Coordinator at NERO (Rome). She writes regularly for exhibition catalogs and books as well as for art magazines such as “Flash Art” (Italian and international editions), “The Visual Artists’ News Sheet” (Dublin) and "NERO" (Rome). Her monographic essay on the young French artist Bertille Bak, "The Fairy Tale of the Real", was published by postmedia books (Milan) in 2018.

Her strong interest in experimental and critical writing developed in a series of projects, workshops and lectures at universities and other institutions, which provided her with a solid foundation for the conception of the online platform Ruth (ruth.onl), launched in fall 2020 thanks to a partnership with NERO. In 2020 she also launched the monthly online column Tell me Stories! on "Flash Art" (Italian edition), dedicated to writers and authors who experiment with creative and critical writing and are still little known in Italy — the first reference of its kind in Italy. "Tell me stories!" will take the form of a book in October 2024 thanks to the publishing house Politi Seganfreddo edizioni in collaboration with Flash Art.

She currently teaches at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome (BA in Graphic Design), at the American University of Rome (BA in Art History), at IED Rome (BA in Interior and Product Design) and at NABA Rome (MA in Visual Arts and Curatorial Studies).