Gemma Medina Estupiñán

Gemma Medina Estupiñán (PhD at Universidad de La Laguna, Tf – b.1975, Spain) is an art historian, independent curator, educator and writer working internationally. She is focused on the relationship between art, art institutions and society, researching socially engaged practices, activating other possible pedagogies and participating in processes that fall outside standard artistic discourse to bring art closer to the non-specialized audiences. In doing so, she fosters connections and collaborative projects with artists, designers and communities as a medium to reflect on the role of art and art institutions, the idea of the canon, and the very construction of art history. She has worked with the Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven (NL) in diverse experimental and speculative projects like “Be(com)ing Dutch” (2008), “Play Van Abbe” (2009), Agents of Change (2015-2020) and the artists in residency program “Artistic Strategies in Psychiatry” (2017). 

Since 2012 she has been working in close collaboration with the Van Abbemuseum, the Asociación de Arte Útil and the artist Tania Bruguera, to build the Arte Útil Archive that was the core of the exhibition “The Museum of Arte Útil” (2013-2014) where she co-curated the public program. She is co-curator of “Broadcasting the archive” (2016-2018), a project to emancipate the usership around the Arte Útil archive. She currently teaches at the international Master Artist Educator at ArtEZ (Arnhem, NL).