Valentina D’Avenia (1989, CH) is an art historian, curator and translator. She lives in Geneva. Since 2021, she is the artistic and administrative director of the Festival of affects, genders and sexualities, FdS, in Lausanne. In parallel, she benefited from Pro Helvetia an artistic residency (2022, São Luís) to develop a research project on listening. From 2014 to 2015, she was responsible for the University art space Le Cabanon, she was a recipient of the ASHHA Art History Research Incentive Award (2014 Berne), before graduating with a Master des Lettres in Art History with a specialisation in Cultural Studies from the University of Lausanne (2016).

She began her career as an independent curator in small art spaces and festivals, and her projects are oriented towards the repair of art history and the valorisation of non-hegemonic knowledge. Politically, she owes much to her years of living in Brazil.

She co-curated the exhibitions CORPO ABERTO: Um arquivo de Sentimentos, with Léa Meier at Emergency art space (2019, Vevey), Swiss Neutral with Céline Burnand at eeeeh!, (2020, Nyon). Interested in the functioning of institutions, she did internships at Swissnex Brazil (2015, Rio de Janeiro) and Pro Helvetia (2017, Zurich). In Brazil, she has collaborated as an artist or curator at La Casa do Povo, the art publishing festival Plana Festival, as well as VERBO performance art festival, in São Paulo. In Switzerland she has worked as an administrator and producer for Les Urbaines Festival (2019, Lausanne) and as a programmer for Foodculture Days (2018-2021, Vevey), eeeeh! (2019- 2021, Nyon) and La Fête du Slip (2021, Lausanne).

She has been part of several collectives, including the translation collective BRASA, with whom she published a book, TEXTES à LIRE A VOIX HAUTE, with Brook (2022, Paris).Valentina D’Avenia is the artistic and administrative director of the Festival of affects, genders and sexualities, FdS, in Lausanne.