Mihaela Ion explores AICA’s global network, selecting curators and cultural professionals whose expertise aligns with contemporary art’s current trends and challenges, including digital innovation, multidisciplinary practice, and social engagement. Her thoughtful approach fosters meaningful dialogue and collaboration that advance curatorial practice, promote cultural exchange, and address pressing issues across the art world.
In this episode, Mihaela converses with Dr Joke de Wolf, discussing her diverse projects and her presentation at the AICA International Congress on the complex legacy of colonialism and its impact on art, identity, and cultural narratives.
ABOUT THE MODERATOR: MIHAELA ION
Mihaela Ion holds a PhD in History and is a curator, cultural manager, and art researcher based in Bucharest. She has been a member of AICA since 2021, an International Board Member since 2022, and serves on the Digital Strategies Committee. Over the past 18 years, she has presented papers on Communist art, culture wars, and contemporary art at leading conferences across Europe, and she collaborates with several galleries and museums throughout the continent. Her doctoral thesis examines the heritage of Communist-era artworks.
Mihaela has also worked as a cultural manager in London with body>data>space, and in Paris, Sélestat, Strasbourg, and Nancy during her Courants du Monde grant from the French Ministry of Culture. In 2010, she co-founded Atelierul Magazine, an international online and offline platform that fosters intercultural dialogue between designers and the public. Most recently, she contributed cultural project evaluation expertise with Apexart in New York.
ABOUT THE GUEST: JOKE DE WOLF
Dr Joke de Wolf, President of AICA Netherlands, is a full-time freelance art critic who publishes regularly for the national newspaper Trouw and the weekly news magazine De Groene Amsterdammer. She studied Art History and the History of Photography at the University of Amsterdam, in Paris, and in Weimar, and earned her PhD at the University of Groningen with a dissertation on the nineteenth-century French photographer Charles Marville and his images of the streets of Paris.
In March 2025, she published Het Moedermodel (The Mother Mold): Art, Women and Motherhood. She is currently preparing a book about censorship in silent films. In addition to serving on the board of AICA Netherlands, she is a board member of the Nederlands Fotogenootschap (Dutch Photography Association) and the Buning Brongers Stichting, which organises a biennial award for emerging painters in the Netherlands.