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About Dr Jareh Das 

I am an independent curator and occasional florist of Uvwie heritage. Born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and raised in Lagos, I move between West Africa and the UK. I have worked as a curator for more than fifteen years, engaging with global modern and contemporary art through an inherently interdisciplinary practice, with a particular emphasis on performance.

For me, curating exhibitions and writing about art are interconnected practices, both concerned with creating meaningful narratives around artists, their work, and the contexts in which it is made. Through exhibition-making and critical writing, I create spaces for audiences, whether in the gallery or on the page, to encounter and experience art.

Central to my approach is sustained dialogue with living artists and close attention to artistic processes and works in flux. This proximity to artists allows me to consider art in a state of becoming, attentive to its evolving and transformative possibilities. I am interested in how art can connect people, places and histories, and in the ways curatorial practice can recover, complicate and make visible forms of knowledge that have been overlooked or marginalised.

My practice brings together curatorial research, contemporary artistic practice, education and institutional development, with interests spanning performance, material culture, heritage, African and diasporic art, and new approaches to knowledge production. My projects have included major touring exhibitions, practitioner-led programmes, commissions, research initiatives, and publications, in collaboration with artists, academics, cultural institutions, and diverse publics.

Selected Projects

Echoes in the Present, Frieze London, 2025

I curated Echoes in the Present, a newly curated section exploring intergenerational dialogue among contemporary artists from Brazil, Africa and their diasporas. Across eight galleries and ten artists, the exhibition brought together practices engaging with land, memory and material. The section was reviewed and featured in Domus, CN Traveller, Frieze Week Magazine, The Art Newspaper and  Elephant Magazine.

Body Vessel Clay 2022–2025

I curated Body Vessel Clay, an exhibition examining how ceramics have been disrupted, questioned and reimagined by Black women over seven decades, beginning with the pioneering Nigerian potter Ladi Kwali. The exhibition was presented at Two Temple Place, London, and York Art Gallery before its U.S. debut at Ford Foundation Gallery in New York in 2025. Across its iterations, it featured more than 100 recent and new works by modern and contemporary artists, including Ladi Kwali, Halima Audu, Asibi Ido, Magdalene Odundo, Bisila Noha, Phoebe Collings-James, Shawanda Corbett, Chinasa Vivian Ezugha, Jade Montserrat and Julia Phillips. The exhibition was reviewed and featured internationally, including in The New York Times, NATAAL, The New Yorker, Brooklyn Rail, Connect for Culture Africa, CNN, BBC Pidgin, Financial Times, The Guardian, Wallpaper*, Surface Magazine, Observer, Ceramics Now, Hyperallergic, Frieze Magazine, London Evening Standard, The Voice,  Art Africa Magazine, The Journal of Modern Craft, Ocula, Africanah.org, The Design Edit, The Art Newspaper, Studio International, The White Pube, Ceramics Review, and Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art.

Catch the Invisible, Dakar, 2024

Co-curated and realised in collaboration with Aissa Dione of Galerie Atiss Dakar, Catch the Invisible brought together artists from Brazil, West Africa and the African diaspora whose practices explore material and immaterial realms and innovative approaches to visual storytelling.

The Enduring Legacy of Ladi Kwali documentary, 2023

My inaugural directorial project, The Enduring Legacy of Ladi Kwali, considers the legacy of pioneering Nigerian ceramicist Ladi Dosei Kwali (1925–1984) through newly recorded interviews with her family and community members in Northern Nigeria. The project developed from research supported by my Early Career Fellowship from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, part of its inaugural New Narratives awards scheme.

PUBLIC PRIVATE, Pond Society, Shanghai, 2023

I curated a two-part micro-survey of contemporary painting at Pond Society, Shanghai, bringing together twelve international artists including Tunji Adeniyi-Jones, Dominic Chambers, Anthony Cudahy, Ulala Imai, Sarah Lee, GaHee Park, Caroline Walker and Michaela Yearwood-Dan. ArtReview named the exhibition a top exhibition pick for June 2023, and it was featured in Art Basel Stories.

One in the Other, Camden Art Centre, London, 2022

Between September and December 2021, One in the Other transformed Camden Art Centre’s Gallery 3 into an evolving space for film, performance, music, poetry, self-defence, singing, resting and pausing. The project brought together over 30 artists, musicians, creatives and collectives including Black Obsidian Sound System (B.O.S.S.), Dele Adeyemo with Oworo Collective, Chris Bramble, Sheila Chukuwlozie, Remi Kuforiji and Kazeem Kuteyi, DeForrest Brown Jr./Speaker Music, Phoebe Collings-James, Cõvco, Nadeem Din-Gabisi with Coby Sey and MettaShiba, Adam Farah, Chloe Filani, Hasani, Onyeka Igwe, Safari MMA, Grace Ndiritu, Bisila Noha, Petit Oiseau, Muslim Sisterhood, Ebun Sodipo, Ms Carrie Stacks, Johanna Tagada-Hoffbeck, Mudbelly Teaches and Deniz Ünal.

Institutional Leadership

In 2022, I served as Deputy Director of Deptford X, London’s longest-running visual arts festival. Working with the Director and Board, I contributed to strategic direction while overseeing financial, HR and artistic programmes. I also curated and delivered the ten-day festival, including eight new artist commissions and a community-led parade through Deptford High Street by Nigerian performance and visual artist Jelili Atiku.

My previous curatorial and editorial roles include Camden Art Centre, MVRDV, Arts Catalyst, Etemad Gallery Dubai, and MIMA Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art. At Arts Catalyst, my doctoral research curatorship brought together contemporary art, science and interdisciplinary research, developing exhibitions, commissions and new approaches to production and display.

Education & Research

I hold a doctorate in Curating Art and Science: New Methods and Sites of Production and Display, a partnership between Royal Holloway, University of London, and Arts Catalyst, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).

I also hold an MA in Curating Contemporary Art (Inspire) from the Royal College of Art, London, funded by Arts Council England, and a BA (Hons) in Material Culture, Architecture and Museum Studies from the University of Leeds.

Between 2022 and 2024, I was the inaugural recipient of the New Narratives: Early Career Fellowship award from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. My research has also received support from organisations including the State Ceramics Foundation, Maak Foundation, Graham Foundation, Arts Council England, Decorative Art Society, Art Fund, British Academy and Leverhulme Trust.

In 2019, I undertook a three-month research journey across Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, Mali, Benin, Côte d’Ivoire and Togo, supported by Arts Council England, investigating activist-led, community-driven projects and artistic practices.

My current research continues to move across art, heritage, archives and cultural histories, including emerging research into post-independence Nigeria.

Writing & Public Engagement

Writing has been integral to my curatorial practice since I began publishing on my blog Artistes Only between 2008 and 2012. My writing on art, design and architecture has since appeared internationally in publications including Frieze, Financial Times, The Art Newspaper, ArtReview, Wallpaper, PIN-UP, Domus, Ocula, Disegno, BOMB, World of Interiors, The Architectural Review, Hyperallergic* and Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art.

I have written exhibition essays and critical texts for artists and institutions including Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Tabita Rezaire, Rosana Paulino, Donald Rodney, Theaster Gates, Ndidi Dike, Phoebe Collings-James, Alberto Pitta and Shawanda Corbett, as well as for Hayward Gallery, Delfina Foundation, Visual AIDS and The FLAG Art Foundation.

I regularly lecture, participate in conversations and deliver talks and workshops for universities, museums, galleries and cultural organisations internationally. Recent and past engagements include the Royal College of Art, Slade School of Fine Art, NYU Abu Dhabi, Centre for Curatorial Studies at Bard, Whitechapel Gallery, Camden Art Centre, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool Biennial, Art Basel Hong Kong and the Association for Art History.

Explore selected projects, writing and research →

Floral Design →

Get in touch →

I am also a member of the advisory board for the Contemporary Art Society.