Anna Smolak is a curator, writer, and researcher born in Krakow and currently living in Brussels. She is interested in post-representational approaches in curating and the social positioning of art. In her work, she has reflected on the emancipatory potential of marginalized spaces and the relevance of cultural labour in such contexts. Working on critical collaborative formats based on local resources and structures, she often engaged in performative, nomadic, and time-based practices.
She is currently responsible for the visual arts program at the Moussem Nomadic Art Centre in Brussels, where she works closely with artists within the framework of art residency. In 2016/2017, she was the guest curator of the Future Generation Art Prize 2017 at PinchukArtCentre in Kiev and Palazzo Contarini Polignac in Venice, a collateral event of the 57th Venice Biennale. She held the position of chief curator at BWA SOKÓŁ in Nowy Sącz (2014-2016), where she developed an innovative exhibition program addressing the question of critical institution in its local context. In 2015, she curated the 7th edition of the NARRACJE Festival of Art in Public Space in Gdansk. From 2004 to 2012, she worked as a curator at Bunkier Sztuki Contemporary Art Gallery in Krakow.
Her projects include Lectures on the Weather, a feminist-driven horizontal platform exploring the performative lecture as a site-specific form, with Tranzit.ro/Bucharest / Experimental Station for Research on Art and Life, Silistea Snagovului, 2022; Aslan Goisum, All That You See Here, Forget,' Emalin, London, 2018; Sislej Xhafa. The Stillness of Thought, BWA SOKÓŁ, Nowy Sącz, 2016; Lada Nakonechna Exhibition, PinchukArtCentre, Kiev, 2016; Smugglers, Narracje Festival, Gdańsk, 2015; Re:public, Absheron / Azerbaijan, 2015; Austeria, BWA SOKÓŁ, Nowy Sącz, 2015 (with Raluca Voinea); Detour Institution, 2015; Cadu, It’s Gonna Rain, BWA SOKÓŁ, Nowy Sącz, 2015; Katarzyna Krakowiak, Absolute Beginners, BWA SOKÓŁ, Nowy Sącz.
She has participated in numerous seminars and residencies, including Meet Factory, Prague (2019); NEMOSKVA, Siberia, Russia (2018); Alanica, North Caucasus (2015); Residency Unlimited, New York (2014); Inverse Institutions, Flutgraben, Berlin (2012); Vessel Art Project, Bari (2011); GeoAIR Collaborative Cultural Project, GeoAir, Tbilisi (2011); Post Socialism and Media Transformations: Strategies and Representations, AICA Armenia, Yerevan (2008).