Walking & Talking with Katerina Gregos
Bige Örer, Katerina Gregos • 3/11/26
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Walking & Talking, hosted by Istanbul- and London-based curator and researcher Bige Örer, is a series of video-recorded conversational experiences based on walking with each guest curator in the same location or in two different places in the world. Some of these conversations address broad societal, cultural, or philosophical questions, while others may unfold more intimate concerns and flow with inner journeys. The walks are imagined as poems- collaborative verses composed along a shared path.
In this episode, Örer takes a long walk with Katerina Gregos, the artistic director of the National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST) in Athens, Greece. They walk through the city with Eclair, Gregos’s canine companion, and their conversation traverses the Greek capital’s architectural history, public space, cultural life, and recent urban transformations, which have all been shaped by crisis, development, and gentrification. Along the way, Gregos also discusses her curatorial work at EMST, describing the museum as a public platform for addressing questions of democracy, social life, and ecology through contemporary culture in Greece and the Mediterranean region.
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Katerina Gregos is a curator, lecturer, and writer originally from Athens, based in Brussels since 2006. Since the summer of 2021, she has served as the artistic director of the National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST), Athens.
From the beginning of her professional career, her curatorial practice has consistently explored the relationship between art, society, and politics with a particular view on questions of democracy, human rights, economy, ecology, crisis, and changing global production circuits.
Gregos has held directorial positions for both private and public institutions, and has curated numerous large-scale international exhibitions and nine international biennials. Most recently, she was chief curator of the 1st Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art (RIBOCA1): Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More, which she was also instrumental in setting up as an institution (the exhibition was selected by both ArtNet and Hyperallergic as one of the top 20 international exhibitions of 2018).
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Bige Örer is an Istanbul- and London-based independent curator and writer dedicated to amplifying the voices and visions of artists. Her curatorial practice is rooted in centering creativity and artistic perspectives, ensuring that artists remain at the heart of every exhibition and project she oversees. From 2008 to 2024, Örer served as the director of the Istanbul Biennial, where she transformed the biennial into a dynamic platform for artistic collaboration and intellectual exchange. She was instrumental in developing programs that broadened the biennial’s reach, particularly focusing on children and youth, while fostering artistic engagement throughout Turkey and internationally. In 2022, Örer curated Once upon a time…, the Füsun Onur exhibition at the Pavilion of Turkey for the 59th Venice Biennale. Her curatorial projects also include Flâneuses (Institut français Istanbul, 2017), an ongoing series involving walks with artists. Örer played a key role in establishing the Istanbul Biennial Production and Research Program, the SaDe Artist Support Fund, and coordinated initiatives such as the Cité des Arts Turkey Workshop Artist Residency Program and the Turkish Pavilion at the International Art and Architecture Exhibitions of the Venice Biennale. Örer has contributed articles to numerous publications and taught at Istanbul Bilgi University. She has also served as a consultant and jury member for various international art institutions, and from 2013 to 2024, she was the vice president of the International Biennial Association. During this time, she also contributed to the editorial and programming board of the association’s journal, PASS. She is a member of the Curatorial Studies Workshop, part of the Expanded Artistic Research Network (EARN).
