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| Claudia Tomaz | |
|---|---|
| Name | Claudia Tomaz |
| Birth date | 1979 |
| Birth place | Lisbon, Portugal |
| Occupation | Writer; Curator; Cultural Theorist |
| Nationality | Portuguese |
Claudia Tomaz is a Lisbon-born writer, curator, and cultural theorist known for interdisciplinary projects bridging contemporary art, museum studies, and urban research. Her practice integrates exhibition-making, critical essays, and collaborative pedagogy, engaging institutions, festivals, and university programs across Europe and Latin America. Tomaz's work has appeared in major biennials, municipal programs, and academic symposia, often intersecting with archives, migration studies, and heritage institutions.
Born in Lisbon, Tomaz studied at the University of Lisbon and later attended postgraduate programs affiliated with the Goldsmiths, University of London and the New University of Lisbon. She trained in curatorial studies at institutions connected to the Tate Modern and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), and undertook research fellowships at the European University Institute and the Humboldt University of Berlin. Early mentors included curators and theorists from the Documenta network and visiting scholars from the Institute of Contemporary Arts and the Serpentine Galleries.
Tomaz began her career working with municipal cultural departments in Lisbon and collaborating with the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the Serralves Foundation. She curated projects at the Bienal de São Paulo, participated in the programming of the Manifesta platform, and worked with the curatorial teams of the Venice Biennale and the Berlin Biennale. Her institutional affiliations have included residencies at the European Cultural Foundation, the Kadist Art Foundation, and the Getty Research Institute. Tomaz has lectured at the Royal College of Art, the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, and the Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3, and has served on advisory boards for the British Council, the Goethe-Institut, and the Instituto do Património Cultural.
Tomaz curated the exhibition "Urban Archives", commissioned by the Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea and presented during a program affiliated with the Lisbon Architecture Triennale and the International Council of Museums congress. She authored the essay collection "Archive as Commons", published in collaboration with the Centre Pompidou and circulated through the European Network of Cultural Centres. Her project "Port Cities" connected municipal collections across Lisbon, Porto, Valparaíso, and Genoa and was featured at the Porto Biennale and the e-flux Journal platform. Tomaz coordinated a public program for the Documenta 14 satellite initiatives and co-edited a special issue for the October Journal series on decolonial curating. She produced curatorial interventions for the MACBA, the Museo Reina Sofía, and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.
Tomaz's curatorial style blends archival recovery with participatory practice and spatial interventions influenced by historians and curators associated with Walter Benjamin's reception, the methodologies of Jacques Derrida and the archival theories in Michel Foucault's oeuvre. Her aesthetic draws on collaborative models advanced by collectives connected to Guerrilla Girls, the practices of Rirkrit Tiravanija, and pedagogical experiments linked to Paulo Freire and bell hooks. She cites dialogues with scholars from the School of Amsterdam and exchanges with curators from Nicholas Bourriaud's networks as formative. Her installations often reference archival methods used by the National Archives (Portugal), the British Library, and the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Tomaz has lived and worked between Lisbon, Berlin, and São Paulo, maintaining partnerships with research groups at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena and the Universidade de São Paulo. She collaborates with artists and writers from the Angolan Writers' Association, the Mozambican National Theatre, and the Cape Verdean Cultural Institute. Her community projects have involved municipal stakeholders from Cascais and neighborhood associations in Baixa Pombalina. Personal affiliations include memberships in the International Association of Curators and the European Cultural Foundation's advisory networks.
Tomaz received a fellowship from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and an award from the European Cultural Foundation for emerging curators. She was shortlisted for the Turner Prize advisory grants and was a nominee for the Prince Claus Award in recognition of cultural interventions in postcolonial contexts. Her publications won commendations from the Association of Art Historians and the International Council of Museums (ICOM). She has been invited as a keynote speaker at events organized by the Hayward Gallery, the V&A, and the Hay Festival.
Category:Portuguese curators Category:Portuguese writers Category:Contemporary art critics