Zasha Colah and Francesca Verga appointed Artistic Directors

Zasha Colah and Francesca Verga have been appointed new Artistic Directors of ar/ge kunst Bolzano. They will assume their role in the Kunstverein in January 2023, succeeding Emanuele Guidi, Artistic Director since 2013.

ar/ge kunst was founded in 1985 as an art association in Bozen (Bolzano, Italy), and has been involved in the production, presentation, and mediation of contemporary art for 37 years.

Zasha Colah and Francesca Verga practice exhibition-making as a collaborative art activity, enhancing artistic and social dialogue. They share an interest in collective forms of cultural production, particularly, in how individual acts of imagination and fabulation in shared contexts can become collective.

Zasha Colah (born in Mumbai, 1982) is a curator and writer. She teaches comparative history and theory of curating at Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti (Milano 2018–), is on the editorial board of the book series Geoarchivi (Meltemi & NABA), and is a research fellow at 221A (Vancouver 2021–). Her doctorate (La Sapienza 2020) revolved around illegality and meta-exhibition practices in Indo-Myanmar since the 80s. She co-founded the curatorial collaborative and artist union Clark House Initiative (Mumbai 2010–22), co-curating actions and exhibitions both in that venue and public space, as well as at the invitation of ISCP NY, Ink Yangon, Kadist Paris, SMBA Amsterdam, among others (with Sumesh Sharma et al., 2010–15). Curatorial projects include I love you Sugar Kane (ICAIO Port Louis 2016), Prabhakar Pachpute (with Luca Cerizza, NGMA Mumbai 2016), body luggage (steirischer herbst, Kunsthaus Graz 2016), 3rd Pune Biennale (with Luca Cerizza, 2017), 2nd Yinchuan Biennale (curatorial team led by Marco Scotini, 2018), and solo exhibitions by Muna Mussie, Anawana Haloba (with Chiara Figone, Archive Milano 2021).

Francesca Verga (born in Milan, 1989) is an exhibition maker, researcher, and organizer working in visual and performing arts, with experience in the management of cultural institutions and art biennials. To date, Verga has been appointed General Coordinator for Manifesta 12 (Palermo, 2015–2018), Curatorial Coordinator for Manifesta 13 (Marseille, 2019–2020), and Deputy Director of Archive (Milano, 2021–). She initiated the online cultural platform Liaux (liaux.org), a program of visual art projects presented in virtual space. Her PhD thesis at the Department of Arts and Culture, University of Amsterdam (2022), focused on the tensions between memory, fiction, and fabulation in Mike Kelley’s early performances realised from the 1970s to the 1980s. She has also collaborated with cultural institutions and universities such as IED Istituto Europeo di Design (Florence), Museo MACRO (Rome), Savvy Contemporary (Berlin), NEMO, The Network of European Museum Organisations (Berlin), Barnard College (Columbia University, New York), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), and IMT Schools for Advanced Studies (Lucca). 

From among the total of 68 applications received, Zasha Colah and Francesca Verga were selected as the Artistic Direction team by a jury chaired by Luigi Fassi (Director of Artissima, Turin) and comprising the Board of ar/ge kunst, namely Karin Welponer (President), Roberto Gigliotti (Vice President), Eva von Ingram Harpf, Josef Rainer, Ina Tartler, and Verena Rastner (Executive Director).