Patrizia Costantin

Patrizia Costantin, PhD, is a lecturer and researcher whose work explores the curatorial as a critical mode of knowledge production. Positioned at the intersection of curatorial research, art and pedagogy, her practice investigates how the curatorial — as a relational methodology — can engage with contemporary socio-political, technological and ecological narratives. Her teaching philosophy draws on the curatorial’s potential to foster collective learning, experimentation, and critical thinking.

She completed her PhD in Curatorial Practice at Manchester Metropolitan University in 2019. The thesis explored the contemporaneity of digital decay through a post-medium approach to the curatorial. Centred on the research exhibition 'machines will watch us die', it experimented with curatorial methodologies that engage with the temporal and material dimensions of digital culture, recontextualising concepts from media archaeology and media theory within the exhibition-as-research framework. Costantin was part of the curatorial team for the Helsinki Biennial 2023, 'New Directions May Emerge', where she co-developed 'The Curatorial School of May' as part of the public programme. She has presented her research at numerous international conferences, including ISEA and Media Art History, and has contributed to various publications on curatorial theory and practice. After teaching in various roles at Manchester School of Art (2017–2020), Costantin began her position as University Lecturer at Aalto University in 2020. In 2022-2023, she served as Head of the Visual Cultures, Curating and Contemporary Art (ViCCA) major. Appointed in 2023, she is currently the Programme Director of the MA in Art and Media at Aalto University’s School of Arts, Design and Architecture.

on curatorial learning – notes from the classroom

Working across academia and the cultural field, I explore the curatorial as a research-led, relational practice of learning-with. My first ever visit to the Venice Biennale, Dreams and Conflicts. The Viewer’s Dictatorship, and in particular Utopia Station (2003), shaped my relational understanding of curatorial practice early on. Coming from curatorial studies into academia, I have experienced multiple modes of learning taking shape within and beyond the institution – writing, exhibitions, collaborative endeavours, pedagogies, conferences, and public programmes – and assembling diverse forms of knowledge across disciplines, histories, and geographies. In my current role as lecturer in curating, I ask how we can strengthen and nurture connections between education and the curatorial and artistic fields outside the university, to keep learning responsive and grounded to the complex conditions shaping contemporaneity.