Annie Jael Kwan
Annie Jael Kwan is an independent curator, researcher, educator and cultural strategist whose exhibition-making, programming, publication and teaching practice is located at the intersection of contemporary art, art history and cultural activism, with interest in archives, feminist, queer and alternative knowledges, creative health, collective practices, solidarity, and spirituality.
She is director of Something Human, a curatorial initiative, that launched the pioneering Southeast Asia Performance Collection (SAPC) in 2017 which represents 50 artists from the region at the Live Art Development Agency. She curated UnAuthorised Medium at FramerFramed, Netherlands (2018) co-curated the Archive-in-Residence exhibition, Southeast Asia Performance Collection at Haus der Kunst, Munich (2019), curated Futures Ages Will Wonder at FACT Liverpool (2021-2022), QueerAsias for London, Asia at the Paul Mellon Centre (2021), and Noguchi: Resonances (September 2021 – January 2022) at the Barbican Centre, was Associate Curator for Pera+Fauna+Flora, an official collateral exhibition representing Perak at the 59th Venice Biennale, and was programme advisor for the 12th Seoul Mediacity Biennale in 2023. Most recently, she curated the Brent Biennial 2024-25, titled, bones, stones, and calling the four elements.
She leads Asia-Art-Activism (AAA), an interdisciplinary research network, and is the instigating council member of Asia Forum that has a recurring flagship event during the opening of the Venice Biennale in 2022, 2024 and 2026. She contributes to various art publications and was the co-editor of Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporary and Modern Art in Asia’s guest issues: Archives (2019) and Performativity (2022), and the publications Asia-Art-Activism: Experiments in Care and Collective disobedience, and Thinking Collectives: Collective Thinking (ICI Berlin Press 2025). She currently teaches at University of the Arts, London, and KASK School of Arts in Gent, Belgium.
