Stephanie Noach

Stéphanie Noach conducts research, writes, teaches and curates exhibitions. Her current research focuses on the dynamic relations between the dark, opaque, and black in contemporary art, especially in Latin America and the Caribbean, and departs from an oceanic and postcolonial perspective. In her curatorial practice, she explores alternative manners of doing exhibitions. Together with curator Beatriz Gago, she developed a series of curatorial experiments outside of the regular spaces for contemporary art: Delta (2018-2020), a book-exhibition that was presented through discursive events with biologists, anthropologists, philosophers, oceanographers and poets at Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Museo de Bellas Artes de La Habana, MUAC in México, Lugar a dudas and Flora. Ars+Natura in Colombia; Pórtate Bien (2016), a performative exhibition in the nightclub Fábrica de Arte Cubano, La Habana; and Sin oficio ni beneficio/Handmade Twitting (2015), a virtual exhibition at Cuba’s largest online auction site, Revolico (Twelfth Havana Biennial). She worked as a curator and assistant of the director at the Havana Biennial (2011-2015), and as invited curator at the Museo de Antioquia in Medellín (89 noches, 2017), and Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam (I would prefer not to, 2015). She initiated a platform for curatorial studies at the University of Arts of Cuba (Havana), taught at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia (Medellín), and is now a lecturer at Leiden University where she teaches courses on contemporary art, especially from Latin America and the Caribbean, exploring issues of ecology, politics and the relation between art and animals. She has an MA in Latin American and Caribbean Studies with a Concentration in Museum Studies (NYU) and an MA in Art History (University of Amsterdam). She is conducting research concerning the potentialities of darkness in contemporary art as a doctoral candidate at Leiden University. She is currently a fellow at the Afro-Latin American Research Institute (ALARI) of Harvard University.