Determined to generate critical conversations between cultures, the Paris-based curator discusses the benefits of flexible spaces, the challenges of working motherhood, and wholeheartedly embracing a slow approach. Noelia Portela founded the curatorial non-profit Persona Curada in and established it in the French capital in Through this project, the peripatetic curator has been proposing alternative ways of collaborating with, and focusing on, a new generation of Latin American artists.
The modular format of the project—itinerant, experimental—allows Noelia to grow her network gradually while staying creatively versatile. With Persona Curada, Noelia faces the challenge of how to foster exchange between artists from the Latin American diaspora and those anchored in the traditional Parisian landscape. I grew up in Uruguay. I got a one-year working holiday visa for New Zealand and decided to stay and return to my studies.
I was doing political science—but I always went to galleries, and had an interest in art museums. I then did a degree in cultural and conceptual design. The conversations I was having made me realize the potential in Europe. One of the things was to gather friends. All these artists seemed a bit lost in a new country with a new language; the art ecosystem works according to who you know. The first thing that I wanted to tackle was to try to be the community that gathered artists , to be a place of reference regarding Latin American contemporary art outside the continent.
I had this idea of a gallery that existed continuously, without a proper physical space. There needs to be a critical conversation between the two cultures. So how do I do that? By collaborating with already-established people. The first thing that I wanted to tackle was to try to be the community that gathered artists, a place of reference regarding Latin American art. How is this a good setting—and also a tricky setting? I was recently reading an article in The New York Times about how amazing the emerging scene is and how things are changing.
The galleries in the article were mostly run by white men; there was only one woman. At the same time, there are people doing the work—French artists, Caribbean artists, Latin American artists. I think things are shaping, moving. But postcolonial conversations have been happening in other cities for decades. If you look at London, at New York… it is still very on the surface in France.
