I’m Louise Thurin.

Based in Paris, France.

Louise Thurin is an independent writer, curator and researcher with a focus on the visual cultures of the Black Worlds. She also coordinates several projects for the non-profit AWARE : Archives of Women Artists, Research & Exhibitions, which all aim to increase the visibility of Caribbean, African, Black and Indigenous women artists through production of knowledge and academic events. She acted as a Consultant for UNESCO's Routes of Enslaved Peoples programme in 2021 and 2024. Between 2021 and 2023, Louise Thurin was as the Artist Residency Coordinator of the Biennale Internationale de Sculpture de Ouagadougou (BISO) where she also served as co-curator for its 2023 edition. Louise Thurin has also been involved in the activities of Franco-Cameroonian cultural cooperation NGO Fondation Jean-Félicien Gacha - Maison Gacha.

Louise Thurin began her studies in the Classe préparatoire littéraire (CPGE) at the Lycée International de Paris – Honoré de Balzac, where she completed a Hypokhâgne in Geopolitics and a Khâgne in History and Geography, graduating with honours. This rigorous training in critical thinking and interdisciplinarity laid a strong foundation for her subsequent academic and professional pursuits. She then successfully passed the highly selective entrance exam to the École du Louvre, where she focused on XIXth- and early XXth-century French art.

In 2022, Louise earned a Master’s degree (MBA) in Global Art Business from ICART Paris – École du management de la culture, specializing in the study of the art market, the Cultural and Creative Industries (CCI) sector, and institutional strategy.

Believing in lifelong learning, she continues to expand her expertise through international certified online courses (MOOCs) in heritage, cultural management, and diplomacy — including Archaeology and Heritage of Africa (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona), Cultural Diplomacy (European University Institute), La Philanthropie: Comprendre et Agir (ESSEC Business School), Arts and Heritage Management (Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi), Heritage under Threat (Universiteit Leiden), Antiquities Trafficking and Art Crime (University of Glasgow), and Evaluation for Arts, Culture, and Heritage: Principles and Practice (University of Leeds).

“My mother arrived as a child in Metropolitan France from its insular Caribbean territory of Martinique. My father was raised in rural France from a family who had partly recently emigrated from Poland.

I am known for my every-day, personal and professional involvement in Africans’ and People of African descent’s access to their Cultural rights. I do believe that everything historic, artistic or, to speak more broadly, “cultural” from the African continent and its diasporic communities is of global great interest and that access to their knowledge is a fundamental right to everyone, whoever they may be.”