Dr. Virginia Marano

Virginia Marano (she/her) is an art historian and curator. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Lise Meitner Group “Coded Objects”. She holds a PhD in art history from the University of Zurich. Her thesis examined the diasporic dimension in the works of Jewish women sculptors in Post-war New York, previously assimilated to feminism but not yet connected to the question of exile. She was a recipient of several scholarship and research grants from the Swiss government and the University of Zurich. In 2022, she was a SNSF Doc.Mobility fellow in the Art History Department at Hunter College/CUNY. She is the co-founder and coordinator of the research project “Rethinking Art History through Disability” at the University of Zurich. In 2023, she was a fellow researcher at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice, working on the PNRR–PEBA project for the Removal of Physical, Cognitive, and Sensory Barriers in Cultural Sites, funded by the NextGenerationEU program. In addition to her academic work, she serves as a curatorial assistant at MASI, Museo d’Arte della Svizzera italiana, Lugano. She is a board member of the Fondazione Centro Giacometti and is an advisory board member for the Biennale Bregaglia. She thrives on interdisciplinary collaboration, and her recent interest is in Criptech art, which challenges ableism in the tools and methods of contemporary art, science, and technology. Her research-based work centers on intersectional feminist theory and practice, focusing on innovative curatorial approaches that prioritize decentralization and encourage collaborative practices.