Bio Nella Aarne is a curator based in Helsinki and working in the Exhibitions team at EMMA - Espoo Museum of Modern Art. Previously she worked as Assistant Curator: Exhibitions and Public Programmes at Spike Island in Bristol, UK; convened the Of Animacy Reading Group; and co-directed Obsidian Coast, a UK based independent curatorial platform committed to artist moving image and feminist, environmentally sustainable practices. In her work, Nella considers ethical encounters, collaborative learning and redefined notions of productivity. She is invested in critical thought that calls for heightened sensitivity to our own socio-political and material entanglements with boundless subject positions, histories, living beings, molecular compositions, technological apparatuses and infrastructures.

Nella has also worked with and contributed to programmes at Residency Unlimited, New York; UmArts, Umeå University; Kim? Contemporary Art Center, Riga; Somerset House, London; ICA, London; Abandon Normal Devices, Manchester; Arnolfini, Bristol; and Glasgow International. In 2021, she was an Associate Lecturer on the MA Curating programme at the University of the West of England. Nella earned her MFA in Curating from Goldsmiths (University of London) in 2015, and was the recipient of the Curatorial Junior Fellowship at Goldsmiths in 2015–16.