Marta Duarte

About
Exhibitions







Marta Duarte is a London-based independent curator.
Her curatorial practice is grounded in community and support - values she believes to be essential in the arts, and increasingly urgent in today’s world. She focuses on themes of heritage. identity, and lived experience, forming a visual sociological study through art.
Marta is the co-founder of Despite Collective, a multidisciplinary group amplifying artists who sustain their practice despite the labour work necessary to “earn a living”. The collective’s ethos ‘Art that works, for the workers. Making art despite the odds.’ encapsulates her dedication to creating spaces for underrepresented artists, and the narratives that truly shape our cultural landscape.
Marta has independently curated ‘Subject Matters’, ‘Despite: Part 1’ and ‘Part 2’.
Her master’s thesis earned her a Distinction and explores Tate Modern’s performance art collection and how institutions display and contextualise the ephemeral for global audiences. She is passionate about this practice, and multidisciplinary approaches, as well as audience engagement and inclusion. Although she does not claim to be an artist, her most recent artwork Despike, a collaborative performative project, speaks to this commitment.




Curated Group Exhibitions
2025
Subject Matters
Comewell’s, London
7th-16th November

Despite: Part 2
Ethereal Maison Gallery, London
12th-17th July

Despite: Part 1
Ethereal Maison Gallery, London
14th-19th June




Other Projects
2025
Co-Founder/Curator/Project Coordinator
Despite Collective

2024
Assistant to the artist/curator Danielle Freakley
Venice Art Biennale, Seychelles Pavilion (Arsenale)





Education
MA Museums and Curating
Birkbeck, University of London
2022-2024

Post Graduate Art Markets and Collecting
FCSH, University NOVA of Lisbon
2021-2022

BA Art History and Translation
FLUL, University of Lisbon
2018-2021




Opening nights of ‘Subject Matters’, ‘Despite: Part 2’, and ‘Despite: Part 1’

Top to bottom: Denzel Uwumarogie’s Vanitas Sanguinem, and Alexander Ikhide’s Untitled
Left, top to bottom: Lucky Mamu Unu’  Capitalist Champion, and Akintomiwa Olopade‘s
Sunseeker I
Right: Birhanu Manaye's Drifted in the Gaze 2
David Kudaisi’s cherrypie blues
Kiera Grace’s Now That We Know How Do We Live?, and poet Cora Dessalines (right)
Adaora performing her single “ID”
Georbella Fini’s INTERTWINED
Artworks by Anuoluwa Abel (top), Amber Joy, Sarah Ejionye, Leterece Carter, and Enzo Sinai (left to right)
Top to bottom: Denzel Uwumarogie’s Vanitas Sanguinem, and Alexander Ikhide’s Untitled
A visitor engaging with Marta Duarte’s collaborative performance installation Despike
Left to right: Jacob Talkowski‘s Fairy Boy, and Elleanna Chapman‘s Lenin (Working Class Hero)
Left to right: Nicolka Gorel’s Disaster in Periphery, and Emma Phillips‘ Stoner
Marf Summer’s Days of the Week
Elleanna Chapman‘s Lenin (Working Class Hero)
Alfiah Jade-Brown’s If Peckham Could Talk
Bolim’s Innermost
Ella West’s Becoming Geologic (Forth Form)
Despite: Part 1
Tuce’s boiler_suit
Left to right: Teshome Dougla-Campbell’s EVE, and Sid and Jim’s Gone but not forgotten
Xueting Chen’s No. 10
Leah Lilly’s 4 Elm Park
Helen Carr ‘s Step inside love (let me show you the way)
Aoife Carter‘s in bed with a crackhead
evershonk performing Beaten Egg





All film photography by Eddie Pop Instagram