Manuela Pacella (b. Rome, 1977) is an art historian and critic. As a freelance curator, she focuses on cultural exchange between Italy and several countries in Central and Northern Europe. She is particularly knowledgeable about 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). As guest curator, she organized the 2017 exhibition Lost in Narration. Riccardo Giacconi, Invernomuto e Luca Trevisani at the MAC in Belfast and led the second Curatorial Directions, which explored the importance of text, narrative, and storytelling in exhibition making through workshops and lectures in Belfast and Milan. In 2015 and 2016, she was Editorial Researcher and Coordinator at NERO (Rome). She regularly writes for exhibition catalogues and books, as well as for art magazines and newspapers such as Flash Art (Italian and international editions), Il Foglio Arte (Milan), NERO Editions (Rome), and The Visual Artists’ News Sheet (Dublin). Her publications include Inner Homeland (NERO, 2012), Bertille Bak. La fiaba del reale (Postmedia Books, 2018), and Tell me stories! (Politi Seganfreddo edizioni, 2024), a book based on the column of the same name published in Flash Art Italia from 2020 to 2024. She recently started a new column, Cicala (Cigada), for the relaunched print edition of Flash Art Italia, presented at Artissima in Turin in 2025. Every two months, she will portray Rome and contemporary art in the city with a personal, derivative, and fragmented perspective and style.
She currently focuses on writing and publishing, working on online and print projects through her platform RUTH (ruth.onl), and teaches in Rome at the Academy of Fine Art (BA in Graphic Design), the American University of Rome (BA in Art History), IED Design (BA in Interior and Product Design), and NABA (MA in Visual Arts and Curatorial Studies).
