Curators' Hub 2026

  • Experimenter Curators' Hub from 17 – 18 July, 2026

    Announcing the 15th edition of the Experimenter Curators' Hub from 17 - 18 July, 2026 at Experimenter - Hindustan Road,...
    Announcing the 15th edition of the Experimenter Curators' Hub from 17 - 18 July, 2026 at Experimenter - Hindustan Road, Kolkata.

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    The 15th edition of the Experimenter Curators’ Hub brings together nine leading curators from India and around the world, whose practices engage with exhibition-making, institutional structures, and contemporary curatorial discourse across diverse contexts and geographies. In this year’s edition, the Hub foregrounds curating as a collective practice shaped through dialogue, exchange, and shared inquiry.

    “The Hub has always offered a platform to reflect on the evolving nature of curatorial practice and the questions that continue to shape ways of thinking within the context of global political and cultural shifts. In its 15th edition, the Hub brings together curators who are actively developing new methodologies by engaging with geographies, communities, and histories that have also operated outside mainstream institutional narratives. Questioning dominant canons, decentralising art capitals, and repositioning where discourse is produced feels not only timely, but necessary.” — Prateek & Priyanka Raja, Co-founders of Experimenter 

    "The Hub offers curators a unique opportunity to reflect on practice at large. Each participant is invited to think through the stakes and underlying concerns of their work over time, catalyzing generative conversations between different contexts and modes of the curatorial.” — Rattanamol Singh Johal, co-convenor and moderator of the Experimenter Curators' Hub

    Experimenter Curators’  Hub  is a platform for developing and sustaining discourse on curatorial practice and exhibition-making through critical discussion and debate. Structured as a deeply intensive program, every year the Hub invites some of the foremost curators of the world to present their practice with reference to recent exhibitions and projects curated by them.

    The participating curators at ECH 2026 are:

    Arnika Ahldag, Director, Museum of Art & Photography (MAP), Bengaluru
    Gabi Ngcobo, Director, Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam
    Gridthiya Gaweewong, Co-founder, Project 304 & Artistic Director, Jim Thompson Art Center, Bangkok 
    Nikhil Chopra, Co-founder, HH Art Spaces, Goa & Curator, 6th Kochi-Muziris Biennale
    Sabih Ahmed, Co-artistic Director, 3rd Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale & Projects Advisor, Ishara Art Foundation, Dubai
    Sepake Angiama, Artistic Director, Institute of International Visual Arts (iniva), London
    Shabbir Hussain Mustafa, Chief Curator, Singapore Art Museum (SAM)
    Tarini Malik, Independent curator and writer, London
    Zoe Butt, Founder and Director at Large, in-tangible institute & Founding Artistic Director, deCentral, Thailand 
    Co-convened and moderated by Rattanamol Singh Johal, curator and art historian, Shireen & Afzal Ahmad Assistant Professor in History of Art at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

    Experimenter Curators’ Hub  2026 is organised by Experimenter Learning Program Foundation  in partnership with British Council and supported by India Art Fair. Media Partners include ArtReview Asia, STIR, Arttaca, and TAKE on Art Magazine.
     
     
  • Arnika Ahldag

    Arnika Ahldag

    Arnika Ahldag is the Director of the Museum of Art & Photography (MAP). She leads the museum's vision and strategy, with a focus on rethinking museums as dynamic, participatory spaces shaped by their publics and on building more accessible, inclusive ways to engage with art, histories, and ideas. Her work foregrounds intersectional approaches, underrepresented histories, and how objects can transform our relationships to one another. At MAP, she built and leads the exhibitions team, shaping the institution's curatorial direction from the ground up. Arnika holds a PhD from Jawaharlal Nehru University, has taught at universities in India, worked with the Mobile Academy Berlin, and works across curatorial practice, research, and institution-building.
    Photo credit: Priyadarshini Ravichandran
  • Gabi Ngcobo

    Gabi Ngcobo

    Gabi Ngcobo is the Director of Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam, NL. Between 2020 and 2023 she was Curatorial Director at the Javett Art Centre at the University of Pretoria (Javett-UP) where she curated Handle with Care (2021), SCENORAMA (2022) and in 2023, Frequencies, a project by Oscar Murillo and Specifications for a Reverse Archaeology with artists Nolan Oswald Dennis. Gabi has worked on independent curatorial projects, collaborated with various institutions in different parts of the world and for seven years lectured at the Wits School of Arts in Johannesburg. In 2022 she curated The Show is Over at the South London Gallery and co-curated The ‘t’ is Silent at the Museum Dhondt-Dhaenes in Deurle, Belgium. In 2018 she curated the 10th Berlin Biennale titled We Don’t Need Another Hero and was one of the co-curators of the 32nd Sao Paulo Bienal titled Incenteza Viva (2016). She is a founding member of the Johannesburg based collaborative platforms NGO – Nothing Gets Organised (2016-) and the Center for Historical Reenactments (2010–14). 
    Photo credit: Danielle Wallace
  • Gridthiya Gaweewong

    Gridthiya Gaweewong

    Gridthiya Gaweewong is a curator and researcher based in Bangkok and Chiang Rai. Raised in Chiang Mai, she holds an MA in Art Administration and Policy from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a Doctor of Fine and Applied Arts from Chulalongkorn University. She co-founded Project 304, an independent art initiative in Bangkok, which she co-directed from 1996 to 2002. Her curatorial practice explores social and political transformations affecting artists in Thailand and beyond, with particular attention to Cold War legacies and their aftermath. She has curated numerous regional and international exhibitions, including Under Construction at Tokyo Opera City Gallery and the Japan Foundation Forum (2003); Politics of Fun at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2005); the Bangkok Experimental Film Festival with Apichatpong Weerasethakul (1997–2005); and Unreal Asia at the Oberhausen International Short Film Festival (2010). She curated Apichatpong Weerasethakul: The Serenity of Madness, which toured internationally (2016–2019), and was part of the curatorial team for the 12th Gwangju Biennale (2018). In 2023, she served as Co-Artistic Director of the Thailand Biennale, Chiang Rai. Her recent projects include exhibitions at the Jim Thompson Art Center, Bangkok; MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, Chiang Mai; the Almaty Museum of Art; and the Cheongju Craft Biennale. She currently serves as Artistic Director of the Jim Thompson Art Center, Bangkok.
    Photo credit: Thitaphat Chimprasert
  • Nikhil Chopra

    Nikhil Chopra

    Nikhil Chopra’s artistic practice interweaves drawing, live art, photography, sculpture and installations. His performances, in large part improvised, dwell on identity and its construction, autobiography and authorship, the pose and self-portraiture. His work reflects on the process of transformation and the part played by the duration of performance. His performances on the international art and theater scene began in 2008, when the artist was invited to contribute to Time Crevasse (Yokohama Triennale, Yokohama), kunstenfestivaldesarts Brussels, Making Worlds (53rd Venice Biennale), Performa (New Museum New York) and Marina Abramovic Presents (Manchester International Festival, The Whitworth Gallery, Manchester). After his one year research fellowship at Interweaving Performance Cultures, Frei Unversität Berlin in 2011, his work took him back to the Whitworth Art Gallery to make a solo project for the 2013 Manchester International Festival where he received critical acclaim for his performance Coal on Cotton. Between 2014 and 2017 he performed at the Kochi Muziris Biennale, Bienal de la Habana, the 12th Sharjah Biennial and documenta 14. In 2019 he presented a nine days long solo performance titled Lands, Waters and Skies for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. In March 2023 he ended a six months residency at Art Explora, Cite International des Arts in Paris with major solos at Galleria Continua, Paris and most recently at Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai in January 2024. Chopra lives in Goa where he runs HH Art Spaces, an artist-run movement he founded with partners in 2014. In the present he has just fulfilled the role of curating the 6th Kochi Muziris Biennale in partnership with HH Art Spaces. 
    Photo credit: AJ Joji
  • Sabih Ahmed

    Sabih Ahmed

    Sabih Ahmed is a curator, culture theorist, and educator living in the UAE. His work focuses on modern and contemporary art mapped through diverse itineraries and inter-disciplinary formations. He was the Co-Artistic Director of the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale 2026 titled ‘In Interludes and Transitions’ with Nora Razian. He serves as a Projects Advisor for the Ishara Art Foundation where he was the Director from 2020 to 2025, leading the strategic direction and expansion of Ishara, curating solo and group exhibitions, and initiating artist-led curations and international partnerships. His recent curatorial projects include ‘Shilpa Gupta: Lines of Flight’ (2025), ‘Notations on Time’ co-curated with Sandhini Poddar at Ishara (2023) and 'Navjot Altaf: Pattern' at Ishara (2022). Sabih is the co-author of the book Mass Traffic with Lantian Xie (2023) and his essays, interviews and articles on contemporary art have been published widely. He is currently a visiting professor at Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti (NABA), Milan/Riyadh, and has lectured in universities in Asia and Europe. He is on the Advisory Board of the Sher-Gil Sundaram Arts Foundation, Delhi. 
    Photo credit: Veronika 
  • Sepake Angiama

    Sepake Angiama

    Sepake Angiama is the Artistic Director of the Institute for International Visual Art (iniva) in London and a curator and educator, dedicated to developing artistic research, embodied practices, collective study, publishing and community led commissioning that reflects on the social and political impact of globalisation. Her praxis stems from radical pedagogies, black feminist thought, rethinking human/non–human relations rooted in how we might reimagine and inhabit the world otherwise. While in her position as Head of Education, Documenta 14 she initiated the project Under the Mango Tree - a self-organized gathering of unlearning practices. The second edition (Visva Bharati, Santineketan) brought together artist-led spaces, libraries, and schools interested in unfolding discourses around decolonizing education practices that destabilize the European canon, through examining alternative epistemologies, notions of unlearning, and indigenous knowledge. Sepake was the co-curator for the third edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial where her research led her to engage with architects who are embedded in transforming the city through pedagogy, direct action, and community engagement. She has previously held positions at Tate Modern and Manifesta. Her current research and thinking stems from an interest in spatial justice, speculative thinking and intentional communities grounded in radical imagination towards creating ecologies of care, empathy and kindness.
    Photo credit: Vanley Burke
  • Shabbir Hussain Mustafa

    Shabbir Hussain Mustafa

    Shabbir Hussain Mustafa is Chief Curator at the Singapore Art Museum (SAM), where he oversees the museum’s programming at its new post-industrial spaces. From 2023 to 2025, he was Senior Curator and Head of Exhibitions at the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, contributing to the development of the museum’s curatorial framework. He has also held senior curatorial roles at National Gallery Singapore. Recent projects include Tropical: Stories from Southeast Asia and Latin America (2023), which reimagined the 20th century through entangled solidarities and cross-regional affinities, and Ho Tzu Nyen: Time and the Tiger (2023), a mid-career survey focused on algorithmic imaginaries and speculative histories. He currently serves as a Board Member of CiMAM, a global network of modern and contemporary art museum professionals that supports critical discourses on museological futures.
    Photo credit: Leila Shirazi
  • Tarini Malik

    Tarini Malik

    Tarini Malik is an independent curator and writer based in London. She was the Shane Akeroyd Curator of the British Pavilion at the 2024 edition of the Venice Biennale, working with artist John Akomfrah. Until recently, she was the Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Royal Academy of Arts. Previously, Malik held curatorial roles at the Whitechapel Gallery and the Hayward Gallery in London. There, she contributed to several landmark group exhibitions and organised the first UK solo presentations of various international artists engaging with postcolonial and identity-based practices. From 2013 to 2017, she was Head of Exhibitions for artist Isaac Julien and worked as Research Curator with Mark Nash on major international touring exhibitions. In 2015, she was Research Curator for All The World’s Futures, curated by Okwui Enwezor at the Venice Biennale. She has also held curatorial positions at Fiorucci Art Trust, Frieze Projects and Serpentine Galleries. Upcoming institutional exhibitions include Unbound Forms: Mrinalini Mukherjee and Women Artists of India and Bangladesh, The Hepworth Wakefield (2026), and Simone Leigh, Royal Academy of Arts (2027). Malik’s writing has been widely published, and she lectures internationally on curatorial practice and cultural histories.
    Photo credit: Sarah Bates
  • Zoe Butt

    Zoe Butt

    Zoe Butt is a curator, writer and educator, nurturing historically conscious artistic communities, encouraging critical dialogue among cultures of the globalizing souths. Possessing an extensive exhibition, publishing and public-speaking history globally, she founded ‘in-tangible institute’ in 2022, seeking a robust ecology for locally-responsive curatorial talent in Southeast Asia. She is also the founding Artistic Director of ‘deCentral’, a forthcoming social enterprise for the arts, opening in Thailand in 2027. Zoe holds a PhD by Published Works, Center for Research and Education in Art and Media, University of Westminster, London and is currently also Lead Advisor, Kadist Art Foundation. Globally, she sits on various boards, has adjudicated numerous awards and continues to advise and consult on educative and infrastructural development within Southeast Asia particularly. Previously she was Artistic Director, Factory Contemporary Arts Centre, Ho Chi Minh City (2017-2021), Executive Director, Sàn Art, Ho Chi Minh City (2009–2016); Director, International Programs, Long March Project, Beijing (2007–2009); Assistant Curator, Contemporary Asian Art, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane (2001–2007). She has been published by Hatje Cantz; JRP-Ringier; Routledge; Sternberg Press, among others. Zoe currently lives in Chiang Mai.
  • Rattanamol Singh Johal

    Rattanamol Singh Johal

    Rattanamol Singh Johal is co-convener of the Experimenter Curators Hub 2026. An art historian and curator, he is the inaugural holder of the Shireen and Afzal Ahmad Chair in South Asian Arts at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, as Assistant Professor in History of Art. Previously, he was Assistant Director of the International Program at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York where he contributed to a number of collection acquisitions, managed the Contemporary and Modern Art Perspectives (C-MAP) initiative, and the Primary Documents publication series. At MoMA, he co-curated the exhibition, Video After Video: The Critical Media of CAMP, the contemporary collection displays, War Remembers Me and Staging Selves, and was a member of the curatorial team for Signals: How Video Transformed the World. He holds a doctorate from Columbia University where he curated the summer 2025 exhibition, Homage: Queer lineages on video, at the Wallach Art Gallery. He is also an alumnus of the Whitney Independent Study Program, was a fellow at the Tate Research Centre: Asia, and curator at Khoj International Artists' Association.