Annika Turkowski is an art historian, lecturer, and curator of contemporary art, photography, architecture, and lens-based media art. She is currently the Project Director of Operndorf Afrika (Berlin/Ouagadougou), and the co-founder of CUCO – curatorial concepts berlin. She is a freelance editor in art, culture, and non-profit work.

Annika has a specialization in lens-based arts and contemporary visual culture with an emphasis on cross-disciplinary and international programming. Apart from photography and visual arts, she is interested in exploring related disciplinary areas such as science, the performing arts, cinema, publishing, and architecture and has ten years of experience in bringing them together in experimental multidisciplinary programs. Her work includes art exhibitions, film festivals, lecture series, publications, music, and performance projects. Her curatorial practice looks at the politics of representation, notions of de-archiving non-hegemonic narratives in photography and the relationship between humans and their natural and built environment.

She holds two MA’s in Art History and Visual Cultures from Humboldt-University Berlin and Culture, Criticism and Curation from Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design, University of the Arts London. In the past she has worked in various capacities for Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof in Hamburg, the publishing collective Archive Books, and Vice Versa Art Books.

Operndorf Afrika

2020 – Present

Operndorf Afrika is an international art project based in Burkina Faso, West Africa. It was initiated in 2009 by the late German artist Christoph Schlingensief and is headed by Aino Laberenz since 2010. Under the motto “Learning from Africa” the project offers a platform for intercultural exchange programs and postcolonial discourse, and aims to present and project a new and particularly differentiated picture of the African continent. The project consists of an elementary school with an art focus, a library, a clinic, a sound studio, and guest houses for visiting artists. Since 2015 the Opera Village hosts an annual Artist-in-Residence program curated by Nigerian photographer and curator Akinbode Akinbiyi and coordinated by Annika Turkowski. All construction projects, cultural projects as well as their financing are coordinated by the Berlin-based non-profit Festspielhaus Afrika gGmbH and supported by the non-profit foundation Stiftung Operndorf Afrika directed by Aino Laberenz.

CUCO – curatorial concepts berlin

2016 – Present

CUCO – curatorial concepts berlin was founded in Berlin in 2016 by art historians Hanna Dölle, Katherina Perlongo and Annika Turkowski. The curatorial collective acts as a non-profit association and works at the interface of contemporary art, research and education. It realizes exhibitions focusing on contemporary photography and video art, with a particular emphasis on the relationship between humans and their natural and built environments. By approaching current social issues from an artistic standpoint, the exhibitions projects visually engage in socially and aesthetically relevant discussions, catering to diverse audiences. CUCO berlin places great importance on close collaboration with emerging and established artists, as well as partnerships with various institutions. The collective views its work as a continuous process of mutual learning and interdisciplinary knowledge exchange. Its approach stands for an alternative form of exhibition making. A kind of ‘slow curating’ that enables them to think of exhibitions independently of predefined spaces and institutions, but rather with regard to current topics, pressing issues and in close creative exchange with artists and their visions.

Neue Schule für Fotografie

2019 – 2023

Editorial projects (freelance)

2014 – present

The Neue Schule für Fotografie Berlin (Internationale Akademie für Photographie e.V.) has been operating as an association since 2007. Functioning as a private supplementary school, it provides photography training and an English-language International Class. The school is known for its notable diversity with approximately 100 students from various parts of the world and a teaching staff comprising around 20 main and guest lecturers. As an art historian and practicing curator, Annika Turkowski actively focuses her work and teaching on interdisciplinary and intracultural discourses in contemporary photography. In her lectures and seminars, she discusses image theories of the early 20th century, such as the Mnemonsyne Atlas by art historian Aby Warburg, important historical movements in modern and post-modern photography, and questions about visual representation politics in contemporary photography. Reading and discussions are at the centre of her classes, confronting students with both classical and current photographic theories and artistic positions. Her classes involve extensive reading, analysis, and discussion.

With many years of experience in art publishing – both from an editorial and a distribution/marketing perspective – Annika Turkowski enjoys coordinating and editing catalog projects for institutions and artists. Most recently, the exhibition catalog for Julius von Bismarck's solo exhibition When Platitudes Become Form at Berlinische Galerie (publishing date: July 2023).

Currently open for guest lecturer and curation projects on freelance, visiting, or recurring basis.