Dr. Julia Hartmann, BA is an independent curator and art historian based in Vienna. Her curatorial practice explores the intersections of feminist, transcultural, and post-digital perspectives in contemporary art. She is particularly interested in how artistic and curatorial processes negotiate questions of visibility, care, and affect within increasingly digital and globalized environments.

Julia completed her PhD in Art History at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (2024) with a dissertation on Feminist and Transcultural Exhibition-Making in China under Prof. Dr. Elke Krasny. Her research connects global feminist theory with curatorial practice and examines how exhibitions can act as spaces of critical agency in authoritarian countries (find the dissertation on the "writings" page).

Since 2022, she serves as Associate Curator of VIENNA ART WEEK, where she is responsible for the conceptual and organizational direction of the festival’s annual program. Within this framework, she curated a series of site-specific exhibitions in temporary and abandoned urban spaces—including House of Inciting Passion (2023), House of Challenging Orders (2022), and House of Losing Control (2021)—transforming non-traditional exhibition sites into spaces for critical reflection, participation, and collective experience.

As a freelance curator, she has realized numerous international group exhibitions, among them Light Sound Senses (Heidi Horten Collection, 2024/25), HUMAN_NATURE (Künstlerhaus Wien, 2023), The Dark Side of White (Charim Galerie, 2023), Search for...Feminism. The More You Search, the Less You Find (VBKÖ, 2023), My Pen Won’t Break, But Borders Will (apexart, New York, 2023), and Nothing Less! 100 Years of Women’s Suffrage (Austrian Cultural Forum London & VBKÖ, 2019/20).

Earlier institutional roles include positions as Assistant Curator at the 21er Haus / Belvedere and at the Secession Vienna, where she contributed to exhibitions with artists such as Olafur Eliasson, Vik Muniz, Tomás Saraceno, and Catherine David.

Julia’s curatorial work often bridges exhibition-making with research, writing, and public programming. She has contributed essays to catalogues and journals such as frieze d/e, the Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, openDemocracy, and Art Radar Journal, and has participated in conferences and symposia including STILL WE RISE! (Kunsthalle Wien, 2022) and rA/Upture_2 (OFF Biennale Budapest, 2021).

Julia is the co-founder of SALOON Wien, an international network for women in the arts, where she is responsible for organizing talks, exhibitions, and networking events. She is board member of SALOON Network, the international community of all SALOON cities.