Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation appoints Raquel Villar-Pérez as Curatorial Fellow

Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation awards its international Curatorial Fellowship to Raquel Villar-Pérez. This new initiative strengthens the Foundation’s commitment to promoting curatorial practice in contemporary photography and an international exchange among peers. The fellowship supports mid-career curators, offering them the opportunity to grow their research-oriented exhibition practice.

Raquel Villar-Pérez is an independent researcher, writer, and curator of photography based in the UK. Her work focuses on image-makers whose practice engage with migration, transnational feminisms, and social and environmental justice through decolonial and expansive approaches. She has collaborated with international art institutions and publishes widely in leading photography and art journals. She is pursuing her Ph.D. at the Edinburgh College of Art on Latin American Women Artists in the UK, where she explores parallels between women’s migratory experiences and expanded photography.

As part of the collaboration, which begins in spring 2026 and culminates in a 2028 exhibition, Raquel Villar-Pérez will engage intensively with the Art Collection Deutsche Börse. The aim is to identify narratives and thematic focal points within the collection, building on these to develop a detailed exhibition concept. Another key component of the fellowship is to develop proposals for new acquisitions that will complement and enrich the planned exhibition and the collection by introducing new perspectives. The programme is flexible enough to allow Raquel Villar-Pérez to integrate it into her professional practice, regardless of her location. The thematic exhibition, jointly curated with the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation, will be shown at the Foundation’s premises in Eschborn, near Frankfurt, in spring 2028, and will subsequently tour to another European photography institution.

“Supporting curatorial practices has become an increasingly important objective for me as part of our commitment to contemporary photography. The ongoing dialogue with international experts is essential to ensuring that the foundation’s engagement continues to develop in a diverse, sustainable and forward-looking manner. Against this backdrop, I am particularly pleased to be working with the experienced, internationally active curator Raquel Villar-Pérez. We are very fortunate to have won her for this fellowship,” says Anne-Marie Beckmann, Director of the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation.

“I am delighted to have been awarded the Curatorial Fellowship by the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation. This new initiative offers a fantastic starting point for developing curatorial ideas based on the extensive holdings of the Art Collection Deutsche Börse. I am particularly looking forward to working with the team to explore, examine and further develop the discourses contained within it,” says Raquel Villar-Pérez.

With the Curatorial Fellowship, the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation is establishing curatorial practice as an essential component of its funding programme. Building on previous initiatives and collaborations, the Foundation aims not only to further expand the diversity of artistic positions represented in the collection, but also to deepen its engagement with aesthetic, societal, political and social issues in order to enrich new perspectives.

Note to editors:
The Art Collection Deutsche Börse is fully accessible online via the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation website.
Please find the high-res press image for download here.

Media contact:
media.foundation@deutsche-boerse.com
Tel. +(0)49 69 211 1 40 60

About the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation

The Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation is a non-profit organisation based in Frankfurt/Main, Germany, dedicated to collecting, exhibiting and promoting contemporary photography. The Foundation is responsible for the development and presentation of the Art Collection Deutsche Börse. It shows several public exhibitions per year in its exhibition space in Eschborn near Frankfurt am Main. The Foundation supports young artists through awards, scholarships or the annual talent programme of the Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam Foam. Together with the Photographers’ Gallery in London, it awards the renowned Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize every year. The Foundation also works on exhibitions with international museums and institutions, as well as creating platforms for academic dialogue and research on photography.
www.deutscheboersephotographyfoundation.org

About the Art Collection Deutsche Börse

The Art Collection Deutsche Börse is among the most important collections of international contemporary photography. Established in 1999, the collection now comprises more than 2,400 works by around 172 artists from 40 countries. The Art Collection is dedicated to the central themes of photography since the mid-20th century. The visual languages and photographic approaches represented in the collection are as diverse as the background, age, or artistic method of the photographers, ranging from documentary to conceptual approaches. Each position offers its own perspective on the collection’s central theme, the “conditio humana”, the exploration of the conditions of human existence and its position in the world.