Image © Stéphane Valére (Akekusu)
Curator, Art Consultant, Founder of Culture Art Society (CAS)
Awa Konaté is a Danish–Ivorian independent curator, art consultant, and founder of Culture Art Society (CAS), a research-led curatorial platform focused on African and Afro-diasporic visual culture through exhibitions, publications, and public programmes.
With a decade of international experience, Konaté has developed a curatorial practice distinguished by its interdisciplinarity and commitment to centring transnational art discourses from the perspective of modern and contemporary artists from Africa and its diaspora. She has worked on projects across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East with both institutional and private stakeholders on acquisitions, commissions, collection strategies, public programmes, and large-scale exhibitions.
Her work centres on archival research, Black feminist pedagogies, and memory work, with a particular focus on lens-based practices, notably photography, cinema, and the moving image. She has curated and consulted on several international exhibitions and public programmes for institutions including the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Serpentine Galleries, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Raven Row, and the Barbican, among others.
In addition to her curatorial practice, Konaté has guest lectured at Sotheby’s Institute of Art and The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, and served as a juror for BlackStar Film Festival, Photo Vogue, the 14th edition of Rencontres de Bamako (2024), ArtHub Copenhagen’s Residency Programme, and more.
Her writing has been published in Third Text, Foam Magazine, and Phaidon, as well as in publications by the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation, Zeitz MOCAA, the Brooklyn Museum, and Louvre Abu Dhabi, amongst others. Through both her institutional roles and independent work through CAS, Konaté advances knowledge exchange and cultivates global networks of artistic, institutional, and curatorial exchange, particularly from the perspective of the Global South.
Upcoming
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Forthcoming
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Photo Vogue Brave New Visions: Creativity as Rebellion — Jury Member