About Me

Manuela Zammit

Contemporary art historian, editor, critic.

Bio

I am based between the Netherlands (where I work and live most of the time) and Malta (where I am originally from). I currently work as Croordinator Research at Nieuwe Instituut Rotterdam and take care of PR & communications at Stichting Perdu, an Amsterdam-based literary organisation. I work as a freelance art writer, frequently contributing to Dutch visual art magazine Metropolis M and as an editor at Tijdschrift Kunstlicht, a volunteer-run academic journal on visual art and culture affiliated with Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. At the moment, I am guest editing the upcoming issue on the theme of Reverberant Ecologies: On the Relational Impact of Sonic Practices, which will be published somewhere in April 2024.

I am also active in the field of academic writing and regularly attend and present at conferences. My research interests are broad and ever-changing, but I am currently interested in ecologically-minded media art practices, critical posthumanism, feminist philosophy, expanded notions of embodiment and relationality, and languages/practices of liquidity.

Education

Research Master Critical Studies in Art & Culture

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 2023

Graduated with distinction with a thesis titled Posthuman Coreporealities: Encounter Within and Without the Self (graded 9,5), exploring the connection between critical posthumanist philosophy and contemporary art, and contemporary (re)theorisations of the body in critical posthumanist philosophy.

MFA Contemporary Curating

Manchester Metropolitan University, 2018

BA (Hons.) Tourism Studies

University of Malta, 2014

Academic Publications

Institutional critique is not enough, we need to target the infrastructure.
Essay co-written with Alina Lupu for Tijdschrift Kunstlicht vol.44. nr.3: Between the Standing and the Inclined: Structures Supporting Change
November 2023

For a Materialist Mythology of the Mermaid: Emilija Škarnulytė’s Sirenomelia
Article published in Soapbox Journal Issue 4: At the Interface
June 2023

Conference Presentations

Breached Boundaries: Enter the Intruder in Sissel Marie Tonn’s Plastic Hypersea

RE:SOURCE Media Art Histories
Venice, IT September 2023

For a Materialist Mythology of the Mermaid: Emilija Škarnulytė’s Sirenomelia

15th International Deleuze & Guattari Studies Conference & Camp
Belgrade, RS July 2023