Talks
Samuel Perea-Díaz
Curating Queer Exhibits & Curating Artistic Responses to HIV/AIDS from Berlin
24 October 2025
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This presentation maps specific forms of local curating in Berlin, focusing on artistic responses that bridge queer archives and project spaces. It examines three co-curated projects—Ocaña, An AIDS Walkthrough, and Viral Intimacies—to demonstrate how the synergy between collaboration and integrated artistic-curatorial research expands the political and ethical scope of exhibition-making. The talk highlights a self-initiated curatorial model that strategically engages project spaces, established institutions, and public funding, particularly in relation to visual art addressing queer history and HIV/AIDS.
Further, the presentation situates these projects within Berlin’s lineage of pioneering exhibition-making, drawing on examples from the Schwules Museum, Instinct at Village, and nGbK. I argue that the dual role of the curator as a participating artist fosters an insider sensibility that roots the work in the urgency of social issues, thereby strengthening practices of sharing and care. These collaborative projects transform exhibition spaces into active sites of social exchange and intergenerational dialogue—between institutions, exhibitions, public programs, and archives.
Samuel Perea-Díaz is an artist, researcher, and spatial designer whose work spans architecture, curation, and sound art. With a background in Architecture and an MA in Sound Studies, he has dedicated over a decade to museum scenography and exhibition design. His artistic practice explores sound and archival processes, focusing on listening to archives and architecture. Samuel’s academic research investigates the counter-mapping of the sonic city and the impact of HIV/AIDS on sound-based art. He has lectured at Humboldt University of Berlin (2019–2025) and the Berlin University of the Arts (2023–2024). He is currently a research fellow and Ph.D. candidate in Fine Arts at the Complutense University of Madrid, funded by the “La Caixa” Foundation, where he conducts practice-based research through the practice of listening to HIV/AIDS archives.