Natasha Marie Llorens (Ph.D. Columbia University, New York, 2021; MA Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, 2011) is professor of art theory at the Royal Institute of Art. She teaches the Master Seminar in Art Theory and directs the MA Thesis project, both in year four / MA1. She co-founded the Center for Art and Political Imagination and served as its director for the Royal Institute between 2023 and 2026. She also established and lead CAPIm’s Summer School in Marseille in 2025 and 2026.
Llorens writes about North African and Middle Eastern contemporary art and film, feminist and queer politics in art, philosophies of violence, and decolonial curatorial practice. She is a regular contributor to e-flux Criticism. Her writing has also appeared in Art Margins, Frieze, ArtReview, CURA Magazine, Arab Studies Journal, Tijdschrift Kunstlicht, Art Journal, PARSE Journal, Contemporary Art Stavanger, Ibraaz, and many exhibition catalogs. She won the Arts Writers Grant for short-form art criticism from the Andy Warhol Foundation in 2023.
She recently concluded a research project on the Algerian socialism in the 1970s in collaboration with artist Massinissa Selmani, which culminated in two exhibitions: at rhizome gallery in Algiers (2023) and at Index Foundation in Stockholm (2024). In 2023, Llorens and Algiers-based curator Myriam Amroun were awarded a three-year grant in artistic research from the Swedish Research Council for a project entitled, “Decolonization is Not a Metaphor” centred on transnational curatorial methodology. The first exhibition associated with this research, “Wolf Tones,” will open in October 2026 at Tromsø Kunstforening. A second exhibition is scheduled for June 2027 at Havremagasinet in Boden.
Research publications are in full-text available here.