Nayia Yiakoumaki is Curator and Head of Curatorial Studies at Whitechapel Gallery UK, where she developed an innovative program of research exhibitions based on the use of archives.

Nayia Yiakoumaki annually devises the NEON Curatorial Exchange & Award, an initiative that fosters professional relationships for emerging curators, founded by NEON organization and delivered by the Whitechapel Gallery. 

Yiakoumaki co-directed the Athens Biennale organization 2016 – 2017 as Director of Research and International Networks.

She sits on the committees of the museum board for Wroclaw Contemporary, Poland; Women’s Art Library, London; Committee Art Design Archives (CADA); London and is a Trustee at Matt’s Gallery, London.

Nayia Yiakoumaki has conceived a number of successful exhibitions and commissions, including John Latham: Anarchive (2010), Rothko in Britain (2012), Aspen Magazine: 1965-1971 (2012), Black Eyes & Lemonade: Curating Popular Art (2013), Stephen Willats: Concerning Our Present Way of Living (2014), Intellectual Barbarians: The Kibbo Kift Kindred (2015-2016), Imprint 93 (2016), Guerrilla Girls: Is it even worse in Europe? (2016-2017), Killed Negatives: Unseen Images of 1930s America (2018), Staging Jackson Pollock  (2018), Andreas Lolis: Prosaic Origins (2018), and the recently realized Queer Spaces: London, 1980s – Today (2019), The Return of the Spirit in Painting (2020). 

This discussion is a continuation of the series, The New Conversation, that began with David Ross.