March 2011

Amara Antilla is an American curator currently living in New York. Her work focuses on research into spaces that give rise to artistic production in terms of an open system which dialogues with the needs of the sites in which they are located. In particular, the curator is interested in artists whose work develops through a direct involvement with the public, with whom they create a relationship, and who become a structural element of the work.

Amara Antilla was invited to Italy in March as part of the RESIDENZAITALIA project, a network of residence programmes set up to encourage the movement of artists and curators around the Italy. The project was organised by the association FARE and jointly financed by the Fondazione Cariplo, the Brera Art Academy and GAI (Young Italian Artists), in collaboration with Open Care. Selected by Gabi Scardi for the VIR Curator program at Viafarini, Amara Antilla spent the first part of her study period in Milan on the VIR Viafarini-in-residence before going to the Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa in Venice and then to Rome to take part in a qwatz residency.

Amara Antilla studied at Tufts University and at the Museum School in Boston. She has collaborated on the development of education and exhibition programmes at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in New York; and at the Duolun Museum of Modern Art in Shanghai. In 2007, she worked as Curatorial Assistant for the exhibition Migration Addicts, a series of urban events as a part of the Collateral Events section of the 52nd Venice Biennial. As an independent curator she has organised exhibitions, video and film events and other art-related events including UnReserved: Emerging Arts Station, RECESS, New Language Makers and Quick Shots among others. She is currently working at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum as a Curatorial Assistant.