Jo-Lene Ong is a Malaysian curator working across Asia and Europe. Her practice engages with counter-colonial worldviews and aesthetic strategies. Currently she is Curator of esea contemporary, the UK’s only non-profit art centre dedicated to East and Southeast Asian contemporary art. She was Program Advisor for THIS TOO, IS A MAP 12th Seoul Mediacity Biennale (2023)

Previous curatorial roles include Hartwig Production | Collection Grant; Beautiful Soup online exhibition (2022); Other Futures Festival Amsterdam (2020);Elsewheres Within Here (2019), Framer Framed Amsterdam; SUNSHOWER: Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia 1980s to Now (2017) National Art Center Tokyo and Mori Art Museum. Jo-Lene initiated CounterArchive in 2024, a recurring program proposing alternatives to the record of official history.

COMING SOON
I’ll be convening with Alia Swastika, a Curatorial Exchange: Unpacking Infrastructures of Sharjah Biennale 16 APRIL ACTS 18-20 April

Contributed an essay Awakening Shimmering Circuits: plural technological worlds by asian artists to soon to be printed annual MMCA Residency catalogue.

RECENT
Review: Moe Satt, Rest the Thumbs on the Cheekbones, Delfina Foundation
for Art Review Oxford, Issue 10.

Steph Huang: There is nothing old under the sun
Limited publication out now!

CounterArchive: Sharing & Screening
Gasworks, London 13 Dec, 13:00

CURATORIAL POSITIONS

2024 — present
Curator, esea contemporary, Manchester

2022 — 2023
Program Advisor, 12th Seoul Mediacity Biennale, Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul

2021 — 2022 
Curator, Hartwig Art Foundation: Production | Collection Grant, Amsterdam

2019 — 2021
Co-curator of Visual Arts and Theory, Other Futures Festival

2018 — 2019   
Curatorial Research Fellow, De Appel, Amsterdam

2011 — 2014 
Arts and Culture Program Manager, mapKL @ Publika. Kuala Lumpur

GRANTS & RESIDENCIES

2024 Asia Cultural Council, International Fellowship, New York City
2024 International Researcher Residency, MMCA Korea, Seoul
2024 Curatorial Exchange, EXPO CHICAGO
2023 Fellowship for Research on Japanese Art, Ishibashi Foundation/Japan Foundation
2023 Delfina Foundation, London
2017 De Appel Curatorial Programme, Amsterdam
2015 Japan Foundation Southeast Asia Young Curators Grant 

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS CURATED

2025 [forthcoming] Marcos Kueh solo exhibition, esea contemporary, Manchester
2022 Slippery Tongues Sliding Horizons online exhibition, Arts Council Korea 
2021   Kent Chan, Warm Fronts, Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam
2020 Maria Pask, Zhandra Rhodes’ Bedroom; Or A Room To Read Auden, Kunstinstituut Melly,
2020 Em’kal Eyongakpa, babhi-manyɛp/ babhi-bawɛt (mbaŋ), Oude Kerk, Amsterdam
2020 Ana Guedes, Vol.7 n.17 007 | 30’07” |121169_tape loop_7’13”_fragments of Lepanto Part I, Oude  
Kerk, Amsterdam
2019   Elsewheres Within Here, Framer Framed, Amsterdam 
2018    Brace For Impact, De Appel, Stedelijk Museum, and Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam
2017   SUNSHOWER: Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia 1980s to Now , National Art Center, Tokyo
and Mori Art Museum
2017 ILHAM CONTEMPORARY FORUM: Malaysia 2009-2017, ILHAM Gallery, Kuala Lumpur,
2016 Khabar dan Angin: Excursus on Faith in Kelantan, National Visual Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur

SELECTED NON-EXHIBITION PROJECTS CURATED

2025 [forthcoming] Unpacking Infrastructure, Curatorial Exchange, Sharjah Biennial 16
2024 CounterArchive: Fictional Healing Collective Filmmaking Lab, Malaysia Design Archive, KL
2024 Shapeshifts film program with Bo Wang and Shambavi Kaul, Sonic Acts Biennale, Eye
Eye Filmmuseum, Amsterdam
2023 Demilitarized Goddesses, 12th Seoul Mediacity Biennale, Seoul Museum of Art
2023 Domestic Resistance, 12th Seoul Mediacity Biennale, Seoul Museum of Art
2022 Stateless Mind Bodies of Knowledge, Pera+Flora+Fauna, 59th Venice Biennale Collateral Events

SELECTED TALKS & LECTURES

2024 MMCA Residency Seminar, feat. Charmaine Poh & Im Youngzoo, MMCA Korea, Seoul
2024 Southeast Asia as Method, Curatorial Vocabularies, KASK School of Arts, Gent, BE
2023 Public Relations and Propaganda: The Marketing of Anxiety and Empire, Malaysia Design Archive
2023 Gender, Colonialism, Ecology: with Sabine Groenewegen and Riar Rizaldi, ReCNTR, Leiden Uni
2022 Curating with Southeast Asian Cosmologies, The Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, NL
2020 Good Luck with the Future, MA Art in Context, Universität der Künste (UdK) Berlin, DE
2019     Freedom Of Expression And Art, Aichi Triennial International Forum, JP
2019     Looking Back at SUNSHOWER,Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, TW
2017 The Gift of Time: Intergenerational Dynamics in SEA, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, JP

SELECTED WRITINGS

2025: Essay: Awakening Shimmering Circuits: Plural Technological Futures by Asian Artists, MMCA Residency 2024 Catalogue

2025 Essay: Motherless Tongue, Afra Eisma artist book 

2024 Review: Moe Satt, Rest the Thumbs on the Cheekbones, Art Review Oxford Issue 10

2024 Essay: Ajumma and Nation, Cho Youngjoo artist book

2022 Profile: Lost Gens, SEA Contemporary Art in Southeast Asia, Ed. Ute Meta Bauer

PUBLICATIONS

2024 Steph Huang: There is nothing old under the sun, ed. Jo-Lene Ong, esea contemporary.
2019   Practice Space, eds. Jo-Lene Ong, Rachael Rakes, NAME Publications, USA and De Appel, NL

TEACHING

2020 — 2024    Art Theory, BA Fine Arts, Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam.
2021 — 2022    Curatorial Studies, MA in Artistic Research, The Royal Academy of Art, The Hague.

ADVISORY 

2023 — now Advisory Board, 1646 Experimental Art Space, The Hague 
2022 — 2024 Urgent Ecologies: Towards A More Sustainable Curriculum, Gerrit Rietveld Academie