Curatorial Practice on Marcela Villanueva

SIESTA / Ruhezeit

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

A transnational curatorial project developed from SIESTA, an installation by Ravenna/Borchardt (Mariano Ravenna and Mara Borchardt) documenting moments of rest among construction workers. After presentations in Montevideo and Buenos Aires, Marcela Villanueva curated its Berlin chapter as Ruhezeit at Bardo Projektraum, expanding the work into a site-specific exhibition and public programme around labour, exhaustion, care and the politics of rest. At its centre, the Siestario transformed the visual language of a construction site into a temporary refuge for pausing, listening and collective reflection. Through local collaborations, mediation and conversations around workers’ rights, gender and queer participation in the construction sector, the Berlin edition reframed rest as both a social right and a political gesture within cities organised around productivity

Territorial Bodies

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Collective exhibition treating the body as a landscape shaped by movement, displacement, histories of violence and practices of reclamation.

The Pocket Gallery

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

A one-square-metre micro-gallery in central Berlin conceived by Marcela Villanueva through Karne Kunst as an experiment in accessible, low-footprint exhibition infrastructure. Open 24/7 and free to the public, the space was created in response to shrinking independent cultural infrastructure, rising costs and limited access to exhibition opportunities in Berlin. Each project is developed specifically for the constraints and possibilities of the site, turning scale into a curatorial device rather than a limitation. Hosted by Gat Point Charlie Hotel, the programme supports emerging and underrepresented artists through site-specific exhibitions, installations and experimental formats, including projects by Alejandro Montero Bravo, Mamita Chicha and Alice Brunello Luise.

Bardo Projektraum

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

An independent contemporary art space and cultural hub in Berlin-Friedrichshain, founded and artistically directed by Marcela Villanueva as the central physical platform of Karne Kunst’s curatorial ecosystem. Bardo supports Latin American, Caribbean and diasporic artistic practices in Berlin while creating sustained space for migrant, feminist, queer and historically underrepresented positions. Its programme combines exhibitions, curatorial residencies, artistic research, performances, screenings, workshops, talks, publications and public programmes, bringing artists, curators, researchers and local communities into close exchange. Beyond presenting finished work, Bardo functions as a site for experimentation, professional development and long-term project development, supporting both Marcela’s own curatorial practice and projects led by invited curators. Since 2026, the space has been supported through Berlin’s two-year Basisförderung für Präsentationsorte, consolidating its role within the city’s independent art ecosystem.

NEST — Maternar en Residencia / Resistencia

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

A long-term residency and artistic development programme created by Marcela Villanueva to rethink the conditions of cultural production for artists who mother. Since 2022, NEST has developed residential, exhibition and research formats in Coswig, Berlin and Colombia, integrating children, care, collective living and artistic practice rather than treating caregiving as an obstacle to professional development. Across its editions, the programme has brought together more than thirty artists and cultural practitioners and generated exhibitions including Parallel Maternal and Care and Revelations, as well as longer-term projects such as Gabriela Rivera Lucero’s Maternajes Transfronterizos. Developed through Karne Kunst with Sorora e.V. and a growing network of artists, curators and cultural partners, NEST positions care as both cultural infrastructure and a field of artistic research

Nosotras Luchamos / Wir kämpfen

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

A transnational feminist artivism platform initiated in Berlin in 2018 by Karne Kunst and Xochicuicatl. Bringing together material from around fifty Latin American feminist collectives, the project connected photography, video, graphic work, zines, textiles and documentation of public actions addressing feminicide, gender violence, inequality, bodily autonomy and collective resistance. Developed through exhibitions, workshops, public encounters and institutional collaborations, the project was repeatedly reactivated across community, cultural and academic contexts. In 2022, 105 photographs and related materials were recontextualised at Universität Heidelberg as Reclaiming the Body: Feminism, Community, and Territory, contributing to the research and discussions that later developed into the academic journal issue MIRADAS 08 (2025) on feminist artivism and decolonial feminism in Latin America.

Karne Kunst

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Karne Kunst is a Berlin-based cultural platform founded in 2017, working across curatorial practice, programme development and cultural infrastructure. Rooted in Latin American, Caribbean and diasporic communities, it develops exhibitions, residencies, festivals, public programmes, professional development initiatives and opportunities for artists and cultural workers. Through projects in Berlin and across Germany, as well as transnational collaborations, Karne Kunst creates spaces for migrant, feminist, FLINTA and historically underrepresented practices while building networks, resources and long-term structures that support cultural production and participation.

A Constant State of Becoming

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Group exhibition curated by Marcela Villanueva bringing together six Argentine artists based in Berlin — Delfina Carmona, Jasmine Bakalarz, Julieta Pestarino, Justina Leston, Lucía Szych and Martina Zamudio — to explore migration as an ongoing process of transformation rather than a fixed condition. Through photography, video, installation, sound and experimental practices, the exhibition examined fragmented identities, memory, language, motherhood, dislocation and the unstable experience of belonging between places. Developed within an existing diasporic network, the curatorial approach foregrounded the ways migrant artists rebuild both personal narratives and forms of community in Berlin, positioning the exhibition as a space where individual experiences of displacement could be read in relation to one another.

Uprootings and Reconnections

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

A group exhibition curated by Marcela Villanueva and Irene Sánchez at Bardo Projektraum, bringing together Bárbara A. Bielitz, Carla Abiles, Zahra Luengo, Lena Becerra and María Ferrer around experiences of migration, displacement, belonging and the reconstruction of identity. Rather than approaching migration as a single narrative, the curatorial framework connected different material and embodied practices—from installation, embroidery and light-based work to video and performance—to examine how memory, labour, gender, ecology and personal histories are transformed through displacement. The exhibition extended into a public programme of artist talks, performances, activations and workshops, with contributions including Luján Cordaro and direct activations by the exhibiting artists, turning the exhibition into an ongoing space for dialogue around diasporic experience and new forms of connection in Berlin.

Art is Urgent — Emergency Residencies for Ukrainian Artists

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Art is Urgent was an emergency residency programme developed in 2022 in response to the displacement of artists and families following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The first residency was initiated and self-managed by Karne Kunst, rapidly transforming Projektraum Coswig into a safe living and working environment offering free accommodation, workspace and community support to Ukrainian artists and their families. A second residency was later developed with support from the Culture of Solidarity Fund – Ukraine Special Edition, expanding the model through basic living support, artistic production, mentoring and professional networking. Marcela Villanueva led the project management, programme development and fundraising. The residencies resulted in the exhibitions No Words for War and Ukrainian Glances, both curated by Villanueva, with No Words for War later expanding at CLB Berlin into a public programme around artistic mobility, cultural funding, displacement and arrival in Germany.The residency supported Ukrainian artists Elina Bilous, Iryna Daragan-Bogodist, Lidiia Moroz, Natalie Golubenko, Svitlana Galdetska and Vladyslava Kriuk, alongside artist-researcher Samantha Justine Domingo. Their work developed into No Words for War, curated by Marcela Villanueva and first presented at Projektraum Coswig before travelling to CLB Berlin. The Berlin presentation expanded the exhibition into a week-long programme addressing artistic mobility, access to cultural funding, crisis and displacement, and the experiences of newly arrived artists, in collaboration with organisations and cultural workers including Touring Artists, LAK Berlin and Berlin Artists Connected.

Maternar en Cuarentena

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

A collaborative artistic laboratory and development process initiated by Karne Kunst during the COVID-19 crisis, bringing together artist-mothers Alma Rayén Molina Carvajal, Ana Kavalis, Ana Sofía Hernández, Bárbara E. Bielitz, Glenda Rosero, Jazmín Ra, Kari Paredes, Patricia Jurado, Senoritaugarte and Soledad Ramírez. Through collective exchange, artistic experimentation and ongoing support, the project explored motherhood as a lived, political and creative condition, addressing care, domestic labour, isolation, family lineage, exhaustion, support networks and resistance. Karne Kunst The process extended beyond its initial virtual laboratory and exhibition, supporting works that continued to develop in other contexts. Jazmín Ra’s Amanece en Chile: La esperanza no ha sido robada was later presented at Performing Arts Festival Berlin in 202. Bárbara E. Bielitz’s Banquete del día de la madre, originally developed through Maternar en Cuarentena, was later activated at Bardo Projektraum within Uprootings and Reconnections in 2024.

Vierte Welle Film Festival

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

International feminist film festival launched in Berlin in 2019, combining screenings, workshops and discussions and adapting through in-person, online and hybrid editions.

Señores, esto es una teta / Gentlemen, This Is a Breast

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

A collective exhibition of emerging Latin American women photographers examining the female body as a site of autonomy, censorship, violence, desire and political struggle. Through portraiture and self-representation, the participating artists challenged socially imposed ideas of femininity, beauty and gender while proposing new ways of inhabiting and representing the body. Presented within Monat der Fotografie OFF Berlin, the exhibition extended into a multilingual public programme of talks and workshops in German, English, Spanish and Portuguese.

Born Digital

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

A digital art exhibition and experimental curatorial platform developed by Karne Kunst to explore how artworks created natively in digital environments could be exhibited without reproducing the conventions of a physical gallery. Selected through an international open call focused on digital art and STEAM practices, the project brought together Linh Dao, ibz, Julia Vergazova & Nikolya Ulyanov, Perla Mata Chairez, and Victoria Lazcano de la Lastra & Carolina Boettner. Their works explored migration and memory, audio-reactive visualisation, machine learning and environmental relationships, digital archives and censorship, and interactive approaches to sound and time. The exhibition was presented in a purpose-built browser-based 3D environment designed and programmed by Lucas Dima, whose architecture was adapted to the technical and conceptual requirements of each artwork rather than attempting to replicate a conventional gallery space.

Mujeres ilustradoras en pequeño formato / Latin American Illustrators in Small Formats

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

A two-edition collective exhibition bringing together Latin American and Ibero-American women illustrators working in A4 format. Conceived as a compact and easily transportable exhibition model, the project explored diverse representations of femininity while enabling the work to circulate internationally. The exhibition was presented twice in Berlin and later travelled to Russia, Latvia and Armenia, expanding the visibility of participating artists across different cultural contexts.