Claudia Partac's main practice is curatorial work. Her interest in thisfield began while she was studying cultural analysis at UVA, where she wroteabout the Romanian TV set ensemble, a cultural phenomenon of three objectsgrouped together in a particular way but that had not been given much of astory or explanation. This project led her to a more general curiosity abouthow museums and galleries construct and spatially present objects andnarratives. Following this interest, she started an internship at a gallery,moving from writing about curation to actually doing it.
Claudia has been at Contact for over a year and works in the kitchenhere. For her, cooking and curating share the quality of hosting, and the twopractices can come together naturally. She finds it interesting to experiencethe building from the perspective of the kitchen, which sits at a fairlycentral point in the space. People pass by and are visible through the greenmetal grids, and she is visible to them in the same way. She enjoys theperformative aspect of this as well as the brief moments of connection with thesame people who always make the effort to pass by and say hello.
At the moment, Claudia has been focusing on building her online presence.Over the past four years she has been very active, producing exhibitions atleast every two months. Now she is taking time to organise her archive andbuild a website. At times, it feels like a bit of a strange mirroring of herphysical work, translating the objects and ideas that he works with materiallyinto the digital realm.
Two main things drive her curatorial work. One is the experience ofhaving grown up with the remnants of communism while now living and working inthe west. She thinks a lot about the way different people and generations carryand tell stories of communism, where they overlap and where they clash. Theother inspiration is a deep interest in place, specifically how a gallery isshaped by its social and political surroundings, who it speaks to and who itdoes not. Claudia likes to consider how her exhibitions can be made genuinelywelcoming to the people who live nearby rather than only to those who alreadyknow about the specific exhibition. She often combines her exhibitions withdinners, opening them up to the surrounding neighbourhood and offering them anaffordable (and delicious) meal.
A project that she did, which stands out to Claudia is an exhibition shemade in Belgrade for Photo Month in 2025. The site specificity felt unusuallystrong in this exhibition. One of the protagonists who had been photographedcame from Belgrade, and the work spoke directly to the city's recent politicalhistory. Student protests were taking place at the time, making the localpolitical moment very present both inside and outside the museum. Theexhibition was located in the basement of the museum, which connected to thewar-related themes of the work and to the fact that trauma is stored deepwithin the body.
