Photo: Sam Smith
Nella Aarne
Curator, Exhibitions at EMMA - Espoo Museum of Modern Art
Biography
Nella Aarne works as Curator, Exhibitions at EMMA - Espoo Museum of Modern Art. Prior to joining EMMA, she worked as Assistant Curator: Exhibitions and Public Programmes at Spike Island in Bristol, and co-directed Obsidian Coast, an independent curatorial platform in Bradford-on-Avon hosting exhibitions, residencies and public programmes.
At Obsidian Coast, Aarne co-curated projects including Adam Khalil & Zack Khalil: INAATE/SE/ (2020), (Extra)Terrestrial Currents (2020) and april forrest lin 林森: (Tending) (to) (Ta) (2021). Most recently at EMMA, she co-curated and produced an international group exhibition, Arte Povera – A New Chapter (2025), proposing a feminist reinterpretation of arte povera as an artistic method.
In her work, she focuses on social manoeuvring of ethical encounters, alternative notions of productivity, and collaborative learning. She is committed to critical thought that calls for sensitivity to our socio-political and material involvement with countless subject positions, histories, living beings, technologies, and infrastructures.
Aarne has worked with and contributed to programmes at Residency Unlimited, New York; UmArts, Umeå University; Kim? Contemporary Art Center, Riga; Somerset House, London; ICA, London; and Glasgow International, among others. In 2021, she was an Associate Lecturer on the MA Curating programme at the University of the West of England. She earned her BA in History of Art from the University of Leeds and her MFA in Curating from Goldsmiths (University of London).
