Valentine Umansky

Curator and author Valentine Umansky (1989) is currently based at Tate Modern, London. Between 2015 and 2020, based in the USA, she worked with the International Center of Photography, New York’s MoMA and Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center. Her most recent projects include installations by Belkis Ayón, Dineo Seshee Bopape or Rosa Barba (Tate), an exhibition dedicated to Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum and the curation of Confinement. Politics of Space and Bodies (Cincinnati). Co-curator of the 2018 LagosPhoto Festival, she has also worked with Iheanyi Onwuegbucha (CCA) on a vast project dedicated to modern and contemporary Nigerian art.

Tate Modern is preparing a retrospective exhibition dedicated to Cuban artist Ana Mendieta. The project, which will be on show in the UK in 2026, will include previously unseen paintings by the artist, as well as sculptures, the majority of which will be exhibited in the UK for the first time. Valentine Umansky’s residency at Villa Medici Medici will enable her to develop the section of the exhibition dedicated to the artist’s years in Rome, and to interview her friends. Finally, this time will enable her to draft a text to be published in the catalog associated with the exhibition, based on the organic materials she used between 1980-85.