Positioning A Symposium on Curatorial Learning in the Nordic-Baltic Region and Beyond

September 24 to 26 - Helsinki and Espoo

October 27 to 29 - Malmö and Copenhagen

November 11 to 14 - Gothenburg and Stockholm

Işın Önol and Klaudia Ofwona Draber speaking: 

September 25 - EMMA, Espoo Museum of Modern Art

Admission is free and open to public

The Finnish Cultural Institute in New York (FCINY) is excited to be a part of PUBLICS: Positioning A Symposium on Curatorial Learning in the Nordic-Baltic Region and Beyond. All the way from New York, Curators Işın Önol and Klaudia Ofwona Draber have travelled to EMMA - Espoo Museum of Modern Art, to talk about and reflect on the relationship between learning, curatorial thinking, exhibition-making practices, and the broader discourses surrounding the curatorial.

PUBLICS expands the activities of The Centre for Curatorial Thinking by co-hosting the second in a series of four annual, interrelated, and cooperative symposia—spanning Curatorial Thinking, Learning, Instituting, and Collaborating—and explores the importance of public discourse across Finland, the Nordic-Baltic region, and beyond.

Positioning explicitly considers what specific modes of curatorial thinking-as-learning are taking place across the ever-expanding contemporary curatorial field and are enabled by its diverse educational provisions. Positioning gathers past and present approaches, knowledge, and critiques within practices of the curatorial. In doing so, the symposium creates a space for dialogue between local and international contemporary art scenes and their practitioners to generate new opportunities for artists, curators and cultural workers in the Nordic-Baltic region.

The event is from September 24 to November 15, 2026 and takes place in multiple countries in the Nordic-Baltic region, with curators Işın Önol and Klaudia Ofwona Draber speaking at EMMA - Espoo Museum of Modern Art, on September 25, 2026.

About the Artists

Işın Önol is a curator and writer based in New York. Most recently, she served as Director of Curatorial Research at the School of Visual Arts, Curatorial Practice MA Program, and co-curated the main exhibition for Vienna Art Week in 2025. Since 2009, she has worked as an independent curator, primarily in the U.S., Austria, and Turkey. From 2006 to 2009, she led the Elgiz Museum of Contemporary Art in Istanbul as its director and curator. Her curatorial research focuses on connecting archival material with oral histories to build platforms for collective memory through collaborative art practices.

Klaudia Ofwona Draber is a curator focusing on social justice and cross-cultural exchange. She serves as the Director of Programs at the FCINY, and teaches at Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT). She is also the founder of KODA, a New York-based nomadic social practice residency for mid-career artists. Her professional experience includes working at the Polish Cultural Institute New York, at the British Council, and at UBS. Klaudia was the 2021-2022 Helena Rubinstein Curatorial Studies Fellow at the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program (ISP), and has curated numerous exhibitions including: Aoko—born away from home (2024) at EFA Project Space, The Ten Commandments of Renée Cox (2023-2024) at the Princeton University Art Museum, 1-800 Happy Birthday (2022-2023) at WORTHLESSSTUDIOS, and in/stasis (2022) at Artists Space with the Whitney Museum of American Art, among others. She mentored at ArtTable, and New Museum’s NEW INC. Klaudia holds an MA in Art Business from Sotheby‘s Institute of Art-New York, and an MA in Economics from the Warsaw School of Economics. Klaudia is a PhD researcher in Practice in Curating at the University of Reading.