Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts is happy to welcome new members to its Advisory Board: curator João Laia and researcher and spatial practitioner Jurga Daubaraitė. Laia and Daubaraitė will replace the previous board members Kristupas Sabolius and Anders Kreuger, who have reached the end of their term of 4 years. 

João Laia is the chief curator for exhibitions at Kiasma – National Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki. Recent exhibitions include Máscaras (Masks) co-curated with Valentinas Klimašauskas, In Free Fall (2019) at CaixaForum, Barcelona and Vanishing Point (2019) at Cordoaria Nacional, Lisbon, amongst others. Laia co-curated the 19th and 20th editions of the contemporary art festival Videobrasil (2014–18) at SESC Pompeia, São Paulo. Other exhibitions, performance programs and screenings were held at David Roberts Art Foundation, Delfina Foundation, South London Gallery and Whitechapel Gallery (London), Parque Lage (Rio de Janeiro), Moderna Museet (Stockholm) and Kurzfilmtage – International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, among others. He edited A Multiple Community (SESC publishing 2018), co-edited Daniel Steegmann Mangrané’s monograph Spiral Forest (Mousse Publishing 2018) and writes for international contemporary art magazines. Together with Valentinas Klimašauskas, Laia is co-curating the 14th Baltic Triennial at the CAC in Vilnius (2021). 

Jurga Daubaraite is a curator and spatial practitioner working with visual art and architecture projects, amongst them - the Lithuanian Pavilion at 54th Venice Art Biennale Behind the White Curtain (artists Darius Mikšys), Architecture Fund talk series Dissidence through Architecture in Vilnius National Art Gallery, exhibition New Reproductions by David Maljković at Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius, traveling Baltic artists residency Joy and Mirror in collaboration with Beyond Entropy. Daubaraite also co-curated the Baltic Pavilion – a joint representing Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania at the 12th Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2018 and the Baltic Material Assemblies exhibition and event programme AA Gallery and RIBA Practice Space in London. She is currently one of curators of Neringa Forest Architecture research and residency project at NAC, Nida. 

The Director and team of Nida Art Colony are looking forward to working with the new Board members and thanking Sabolius and Kreuger for their advice and guidance over the past years.