Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez is an independent curator, editor and writer. Among the projects and exhibitions she curated are Show me the archive and I will tell you who is in power at Kiosk (2017, with Wim Waelput, Ghent), Let’s Talk about the Weather at the Sursock Museum (2016, with Nora Razian and Ashkan Sepahvand, Beirut), Resilience. Triennial of Contemporary Art in Slovenia (2013, Ljubljana), transmediale.08 at HKW (2008, Berlin). She was co-director of Les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers (2010–12) and co-founder of the network Cluster. She is chief editor of L’Internationale Online, and was chief editor of the Manifesta Journal (2012-14).

Taking the case study of the Contour Biennale 9: Coltan as Cotton, Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez will observe the decolonial approach towards caretaking and question how to take care of a biennial's ecology that it produces, and how to undo its prevailing function related to an unsustainable cultural tourism.
Contour Biennale 9 was designed in phases: a continuum of projects in various formats, in contrast to earlier editions when the biennial ran for ten weeks. Between September 2018 and October 2019, three phases shaped it. These phases were aligned with the phases of the lunar cycle, one of our most natural rhythms, which induces a cyclical conception of time. Projects developed over a course of a year and explored entanglements between the decolonization of structures, mind and history in Belgium and the Neatherlands, and the need for practices of degrowth, care and solidarity to be intertwined more profoundly with contemporary artistic practices. The stretched duration of the biennial enabled a slowed down research phase and a more situated way of working within the social fabric of the city of Mechelen and around it.