Joel Valabrega

Joel Valabrega is a curator based in Porto and Milan. In 2024, she curated the Luxembourg Pavilion at the 60th International Venice Biennale and the Present Future section of Artissima Art Fair (Nov 2024). From 2020 to 2024, she was Curator of Performance and Moving Image at Mudam—Museum of Modern Art, Luxembourg, and in 2025, she became Head of Programme / Curator at Galeria Municipal do Porto.

Recent projects include the performance festival Fogo Fátuo (2025), the experimental exhibition Workers in Song by Billy Bultheel & James Richards (2024), the performative group exhibition After Laughter Comes Tears (2023), and the performance festival The Illusion of the End (2022). From 2016 to 2022, Valabrega ran the project space MEGA in Milan and has held curatorial roles at institutions such as V-A-C Foundation in Moscow and Venice (2018–19) and Triennale Milano (2020).

Her curatorial work—spanning exhibitions, performance programs, and commissions—has involved collaborations with artists including Tarek Atoui, Alexandra Bachzetsis, Cecilia Bengolea, Ari Benjamin Meyers, Pauline Boudry & Renate Lorenz, Darius Dolatyari-Dolatdoust, Lara Favaretto, Trajal Harrell, Ligia Lewis, Eliane Radigue, and Nora Turato, among others.

She edited After Laughter Comes Tears (Lenz Press, 2023), Tarek Atoui: Waters’ Witness #02 (Mudam/Les presses du réel, 2022), and the artist book form is void void is color (2020), and contributes regularly to exhibition catalogues and magazines.

Joel Valabrega is visiting Vienna on a group research trip in June 2025.

Photo: Courtesy the curator