Participants Visiting Critics Vienna 2026
Denisa Tomková (The Czech Republic) is an art theorist and curator. She is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Humanities, Charles University in Prague. Previously, she was a lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Art History at the Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU) in Prague and the curator of editorial programming at Kunsthalle Bratislava, Slovakia and curatorial and publications research fellow at SixtyEight Art Institute in Copenhagen. Tomková worked for the European Roma Institute for Art and Culture (ERIAC) in Berlin as a researcher, curator and project coordinator. As a curator, she worked on the Secondary Archive project, an online platform dedicated to the work of women artists from Central Eastern Europe.
She co-curated (together with Kvet Nguyen) the first group exhibition of art of the Vietnamese diaspora in Slovakia, entitled ‘Nhớ: The Space Between One End and the Other’, at the Kunsthalle Bratislava. She is the founder of the FHS Feminist Reading Group at Charles University, Prague. She is a member of the international ‘Ecologies of Care’ group (convened by Urška Jurman and Elke Krasny), which focuses on art and cultural production related to care and our interdependencies. Previously, she was a member of the reading and research group ‘Social Reproduction in Art, Life, and Struggle’ at the University of Edinburgh and a research member of the ‘Comparing WE’s: Community, Cosmopolitanism, and Emancipation in a Global Context’ at the University of Lisbon.
She holds an MSc in Modern and Contemporary Art: History, Curating and Criticism from The University of Edinburgh and PhD in Visual Culture from the University of Aberdeen. Her research focuses on the normative perception of the human body, aesthetic discrimination, and the whiteness of art institutions, exploring Roma cultural production, contemporary art by artists of the Vietnamese diaspora, and queer and crip aesthetics. Her latest research explores the speculative and experimental nature of contemporary art from Europe’s semi-periphery, offering solutions and alternative perspectives on hopeful futures. She is the editor of the anthology Wandering Concepts (Kunsthalle Bratislava 2023) and the author of Empowering Aesthetics. Contemporary Art from Post-Socialist Central Europe (Bloomsbury 2025).
Gameli Hamelo (Ghana) is a journalist, writer, researcher, archivist and strategic communications practitioner dedicated to chronicling arts and culture across Africa and its diaspora. With over a decade of experience, he has established himself as a critical voice in documenting landmark cultural shifts, from the historic return of looted Asante artefacts in Ghana to Yinka Shonibare’s first major survey in Africa in Madagascar, and Art X Lagos in Nigeria to 1-54 Marrakech 2026 in Morocco. His editorial portfolio spans the world’s most influential titles including Aperture, ARTnews, The Art Newspaper, Frieze, Wallpaper*, Observer, and Art Basel Stories. Gameli is also a Metadata Technician at the Willis E. Bell Photographic Archive, as a member of the team archiving and digitising over 40,000 images detailing Ghana’s post-independence history (1958–1978). He assisted in curating and producing two exhibitions in late 2025 that showcased work from the archive. Known for blending investigative rigour with creative storytelling that delves beneath the surface, he has reported on, interviewed or profiled luminaries shaping the contemporary African art landscape, including Touria El Glaoui, Amoako Boafo, Margaux Huille, Gabrielle Goliath, Ibrahim Mahama, Helene Love-Allotey, El Anatsui, and Yinka Shonibare. His media appearances include VICE News Reports, GhOneTV, a55 podcast and Mx24 TV. Gameli has also worked for global brands and agencies, including Byredo, Adidas, and Third Bridge Creative.
Hyunjoo Byeon (South Korea) is an independent curator, writer, and publisher based in Berlin. She is the co-founder and director of The Floorplan, a curatorial and publishing platform that produces art books as an extended artistic medium. Her work engages the curatorial as a form of research into how art is framed and institutionalized, and extends into writing and publishing. She is the co-author of K-Artists (Archive Books & The Floorplan, 2023) and Liminal Figures (GYOPO & The Floorplan, forthcoming 2026), both based on artist interviews that address questions of identity, diaspora, and categorization.
Byeon writes regularly on contemporary art, contributing to various publications including a monthly column for arte.co.kr. She has also co-authored Curating Research (Open Editions & de Appel, 2014), and translated Curating Subjects (Open Editions, 2007) and The Culture of Curating and the Curating of Culture(s) (MIT Press, 2012) into Korean.
She previously worked at Esther Schipper in Berlin, and at Kukje Gallery and Art Sonje Center in Seoul. As an independent curator, she has curated exhibitions and projects at institutions including Royal Academy, London; Art Sonje Center, Seoul; Alternative Space Loop, Seoul; and galleries such as KÖNIG Telegraphenamt, Berlin, and VSF, Los Angeles. Byeon holds an MFA in Curating from Goldsmiths, University of London, and BAs in Business Administration and Art History from Ewha Womans University.
Pieter Vermeulen (Belgium) ia an art critic, curator, and lecturer. He studied Philosophy and Cultural Studies at the University of Antwerp and KU Leuven. He currently teaches courses on contemporary art and theory, artistic research, cultural sociology, and self-organization at PXL-MAD School of Arts in Hasselt and St. Lucas School of Arts in Antwerp. His writings have been published in numerous contemporary art magazines, academic journals, and exhibition catalogues. He is the author of The Sleep of Reason: Critical Perspectives in Contemporary Art (MER Books/Owl Press, 2024), and has edited several artist monographs. Vermeulen has curated exhibitions and conferences for institutions including Kunsthal Mechelen, La Cambre/HISK/KANAL Centre Pompidou (Brussels), SAVVY Contemporary (Berlin), Marres (Maastricht), Kunsthal Extra City (Antwerp), Europalia.China, BUDA (Kortrijk), and MoCA (Shanghai), among others. He is a graduate of the ICI Curatorial Intensive (New York City) and a former resident at Vessel (Bari).
He served as curator at the HISK (Higher Institute of Fine Arts, Ghent/Brussels) and as artistic director of the university gallery KRIEG?(Hasselt), where he worked with artists such as Julien Meert, Pilvi Takala, Wesley Meuris, Ryan Gander, Grace Ndiritu, Assaf Gruber, and The Book Lovers. Previously, he worked for Les Nouveaux Commanditaires/The New Patrons (Brussels), facilitating public art commissions; for Ghent University (research group S:PAM/Studies in Performing Arts and Media); and for KASK & Conservatorium/School of Arts (Ghent).
Verein K is an independent arts and cultural organization from Vienna, founded in 2017. Verein K focuses on projects in the field of contemporary art and culture connecting diverse cultural and social interests: critical approaches to contemporary art, creating curatorial platforms as well as enabling innovative cultural practices including diverse social groups.