Zoe Butt

Zoe Butt is a curator and writer who lives and works between Chiang Mai, Thailand and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Her practice focuses on critically thinking, historically conscious artistic communities; fostering dialogue among cultures of the globalizing souths; working with public/private institutions and independent artistic operatives, globally. After nearly two decades of directing artist-initiated arts infrastructure, enduring ideological censorship and surveillance in China and then Vietnam, she founded ‘in-tangible institute’ in Thailand in 2022. This institute seeks to nurture locally-responsive curatorial talent in Southeast Asia, believing the resilience of artists in their collation of hidden histories and its ensuing evidential social disenfranchisement is deserving of greater value in our increasingly commodified, cultural and educational landscape. 

Previously, Zoe was Artistic Director, The Factory Contemporary Arts Centre, Ho Chi Minh City (2017-2021); Executive Director, Sàn Art, Ho Chi Minh City (2009–2016); Director, International Programs, Long March Project, Beijing (2007–2009); Assistant Curator, Contemporary Asian Art, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane (2001–2007). Notable curatorial endeavors include Pollination (2018 ongoing), linking curators, artists and private patronage across Southeast Asia; Sharjah Biennial 14: Leaving the Echo Chamber – Journey Beyond the Arrow (2019), one of the most prominent international platforms staging the latest in contemporary art, organized by the Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE; Conscious Realities (2013-2016) and San Art Laboratory (2012-2015), educational programs and artistic production focused on interdisciplinary expertise from across the Global South. Possessing an extensive exhibition and public speaking career, her writing has been previously published by Hatje Cantz; JRP-Ringier; Routledge; Sternberg Press, to name but a few. 

Zoe is a Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) International Curatorial Fellow, New York; member of the Asia Society’s ‘Asia 21’ initiative, New York; and a member of the Asian Art Council, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. In 2015 she was named a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum. Zoe is currently a PhD candidate with the Centre for Research, Education, Art and Media (CREAM), University of Westminster, London; Lead Advisor (South East Asia and Oceania), Kadist Art Foundation, Paris/San Francisco; and Academic Advisor, TIMES Museum, Guangzhou.