Monika Szewczyk is a writer, curator, editor, and educator based in Amsterdam. Her lifelong interest in art- and/as history-making has evolved in close collaboration with artists, poets, activists, and archivists whose methods vary, but who all tend to reimagine structures and reinvent traditions as they negotiate belonging to more than one place, people and culture. A native of Szczecin, Poland, Szewczyk moved at a formative age to the unceded traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations also known as Vancouver, Canada. After studying International Relations (BA) and Art History (MA) as well as theatre, film, and fine arts, she went on to lecture, advise and lead seminars at Emily Carr University in Vancouver, Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam, Bergen Academy of Art and Design and the University of Chicago. Most recently (2019-2022), she served as director of de Appel in Amsterdam and evolved the curriculum of this foundation’s unique Curatorial Programme. Previously she was one of the curators for documenta 14 in Athens and Kassel (2015-2017); Visual Arts Program Curator at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, University of Chicago (2012-2014); and Head of Publications at Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam (2008-2011), now Kunstinstituut Melly; Assistant Curator at the Vancouver Art Gallery (2004-2007); and Program Coordinator of the Belkin Satellite (2001-2003), a downtown outpost of the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, University of British Columbia, her alma mater. Her writings and interviews as well as her editorial work can be found in numerous artists’ publications, readers, catalogues and in journals such as e-flux journal, Afterall, Mousse, OCULA and South as a State of Mind.
Monika Szewczyk’s Visiting Research Fellowship for the Fine Arts program at Städelschule and Curatorial Studies program at Goethe University is generously made possible by Hessisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst with the QuiS22 funding program.