Biography
Mònica Gaspar works as a lecturer, freelance curator and author. She studied Art History (Universitat de Barcelona), Cultural and Gender Studies (Zurich University of the Arts) and Jewellery Design (Escola Massana Barcelona).
Her work focuses on a redefinition of the "applied" as an experimental and socially relevant field of action. With curated exhibitions such as Metadomestic (Landesgalerie, Linz and MIMA Museum, Middlesbrough) , Gestures, Actions and Jewellery (Pratt Manhattan Gallery, New York) or Neue Masche. Rethinking Needlework (Museum Bellerive, Zurich), she has explored the spaces between art, design and activism.
She has earned an international reputation through publications (see list below), contributions to panel discussions (New Voices in Craft Theory, Saatchi Gallery, London), the organisation of workshops (Theorising with Masking Tape, Auckland Museum) organisation of academic conferences (Discursive threads in contemporary art and design productions, ICS Institute, ZHdK) and participation in advisory boards (Peer Reviewer for DHS and ICDHS conferences, Editorial Advisory Board Member at the Journal for Jewellery Research).
The cooperation as lecturer, mentor and external examiner with Swiss and international art and design universities in Scandinavia, England, the Netherlands and the USA has shaped her understanding of teaching at the interface between theory and practice.
Her guest lectures at colloquia for practice-based PhD students (in HDK Gothenborg, Bergen National Academy of Arts and Aalto University School of Arts and Design, Helsinki) have made her aware of the processes of academization of aesthetic practices. These experiences have led to her being invited to work as a research associate at the Institute for Theory of the ZHdK for the research project Aesthetic Practices after Bologna from 2013 - 2016. She is currently writing her doctorate on the topic of 'design exhibitions as a research dispositive in cultural interstices' at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
