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 and co-chairs the Center for Art and the Political Imaginary. Her main responsibility for CAPIm is an annual summer school held in Marseille, which revolved around Jacque Derrida’s notion of “Justice-to-Come” in 2025.
Llorens writes about North African and Middle Eastern contemporary art and film, feminist and queer politics in art, philosophies of violence, decolonial curatorial practice, and the work of her long-term collaborators. 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 Andy Warhol Art Writers Grant for short-form is criticism in 2022.
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 minor transnationalism in curatorial methodology. The first exhibitions associated with this research are scheduled for fall 2026. She is also working on an exhibition for spring 2026 about the esoteric agency of natural world with Mariam Elnozahy, artistic director of Konsthall C in Stockholm.