About the 2026 Curators
Kari Conte is the Co-Artistic Director of the Medina Triennial and a curator, writer, and cultural leader whose practice focuses on global contemporary art and ecological and feminist perspectives. Based in New York and Türkiye, she has curated more than forty exhibitions and collaborated with leading institutions worldwide. Her artist-centered work spans exhibitions, new commissions, publishing, and residencies, forging long-term institutional partnerships and advancing socially and politically engaged practices. She currently holds curatorial roles at City as Living Laboratory (CALL) in New York and Kai Art Center in Tallinn. Additionally, she is Senior Advisor at the International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP), where she previously worked as Director of Programs and Exhibitions for nearly a decade.
Conte has curated solo exhibitions by Flo Kasearu, Fatma Bucak, Alban Muja, Sonia Leimer, Chiara Fumai, Hikaru Fujii, Jennifer Tee, Eva Kot’átková, and Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens, among others. Her research-based group exhibitions include Aqueous Earth, examining humanity’s impact on water and biodiversity, and Concrete Truth, a survey of lens-based practices at the intersection of art and documentary. She has been involved in biennials for over a decade—as an advisor to the Helsinki Biennial and a guest curator for the Aichi Triennale and the Performa Biennial. She was a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar in Istanbul and has held fellowships at Tokyo Arts and Space and the Getty Leadership Institute. She teaches at Parsons School of Design and has also taught at the School of Visual Arts.
Her writing has been published by Mousse Publishing, JRP|Ringier, Printed Matter, Sternberg Press, and the Sharjah Art Foundation. She has edited over twenty books and catalogs, including Bringing Worlds Together: A Rethinking Residencies Reader and Mierle Laderman Ukeles: Seven Work Ballets. Earlier in her career, she held roles at Whitechapel Gallery, the New Museum, and Artists Space, and earned an M.A. in Curating Contemporary Art from the Royal College of Art in London.
Karin Laansoo lives in Rochester, New York, and Tallinn, Estonia, and is Co-Artistic Director of the Medina Triennial as well as the Founding Director of the Estonian Contemporary Art Development Center (ECADC) and Artistic Director of Kai Art Center. After seven years as a nomadic organization operating in New York City and Tallinn, in 2019 ECADC opened Kai Art Center in a renovated submarine factory in Tallinn, Estonia, and is now headquartered there, where it has grown into one of the preeminent contemporary art institutions in the Baltic States. Laansoo has substantial experience in contemporary art leadership roles, with 15 years of international experience fundraising, programming, and curating for art institutions and nonprofits, as well as fostering collaborations, projects, and networks between the private and public sectors in the US and internationally. Her recent curatorial projects include organizing exhibitions with Shezad Dawood, Merike Estna, Patricia Piccinini, Hranfhildur Arnardóttir, Tuomas A. Laitinen & Kristina Õllek, and performance with Kris Lemsalu & Kitty Florentine for the Performa Biennial in 2023 among others. She has an MA in Art History from the Estonian Academy of Arts as well as PhD All But Dissertation (ABD), and completed the Business of Culture Aalto Executive Education program in 2021.
