Inês Valle

Inês Valle is an art curator, writer, and producer driven by a commitment to international and interdisciplinary exchange. She has initiated and participated in numerous art projects that aim to deepen our understanding of the concept of the ‘other.’ Rather than merely offering alternatives to dominant hegemonic narratives, her work seeks to interrupt, interrogate, and explore the effects and possibilities of unheard and overlooked (hi)stories.

She is the founder of the CERA PROJECT, a non-profit organization that promotes art that falls outside Eurocentric and Western narratives. She also co-founded DUSK, a contemporary art night festival held at ancestral stone sites, and FRAT, an art and sustainability lab in Nigeria.
Currently, she is working at CAM–Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian / Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Portugal.

From 2021 to 2024, she served as the artistic director of .insofar, an art gallery committed to challenging stereotypes and redefining the artist-work-public relations to address the complexity and aesthetics of diversity. During her tenure, she curated a program of exhibitions both within the gallery’s “white cube” space and on its facade, as well as off-site spaces, featuring artists such as Edson Chagas (AO), Miguel Palma (PT), António Ole (AO), Marcelo Brodsky (AR), Ai Weiwei (CH), Paulo Kapela (AO), Graeme Williams (SA), John Trashkowsky (SW), Gideon Mendel (SA), and Marcela Cantuária (BR), among others. A program that led the gallery to receive a “Best Exhibition in Portugal” award from the Portuguese Art Association (SPA).

As a curator and researcher, she has collaborated with several universities and art organizations, including Centro Cultural Belém (PT), Museum of Contemporary Art – Coleção Berardo (PT), Canberra Contemporary Art (AUS), National Museum of Lagos (NG), and Artspace Aotearoa (NZ), among others.

Selected exhibitions include: “God Factor” at the Monastery of São Martinho de Tibães (Braga, 2012); “Art Stabs Power” (Lisbon/ London, 2014); “Khaled Jarrar: Gently I Press the Trigger” (Paris/ Ramallah, 2014); “Leo Asemota: THE AVATĀRA SUITE” (London, 2015); “Wolof/Jollof” at the National Museum Onikan (Lagos, 2015); “Before Before Now Now: 100 years of Nigerian photography” (London/ Porto, 2014/16); “A Very Thin Line” (London, 2016) that invited the audience to experience the tension between vulnerability and resistance, love and pain, as whispered in our daily struggles; “Unforgettable (You!)” (London, 2017) a collective exhibition that focused on themes that connect tattooing with human trafficking, scarification, memory, science, and body confidence; “1968: The Fire of Ideas” at Museu Coleção Berardo (Lisbon, 2019), an exhibition of the work of Marcelo Brodsky, along exclusive dialogues with other artists’ works, such as Marcel Broodthaers and Jacques Charlier; “Muxima: Feels Like Earth, Smells Like Heaven” solo exhibition by Edson Chagas (Lisbon, 2021) and “E_ o lixo vai?! ” a solo exhibition by António Ole showcasing works from the last 50 years (Lisbon, 2022).

Other curatorial projects emphasize co-design processes and community engagement by challenging traditional audience interactions. Examples include There Is No Present Like Time (London, 2017), an immersive 3-hour live performance that pushes the boundaries of tattooing as an art form, and Pneumacity Lagos (2023/25), a public exhibition employing urban acupuncture across Lagos to merge art with scientific knowledge. Featuring Andrew Esiebo’s work displayed at vulcanizer’s workstations, critically revealing the impacts of second-life tires in African streetscapes.

Her peripatetic lifestyle and extensive research over the past 20 years, spanning countries such as Australia, Aotearoa, Benin, South Africa, India, Nigeria, Cambodia, Portugal, and the United Kingdom, have shaped a unique worldview that she brings into her curatorial projects.
She holds a BA in Visual Arts/ Painting and an MA in Curatorial Studies, both from the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Lisbon.