Léo Marin – Biography
Léo Marin is a French curator, artistic director and art critic whose practice explores how art can engage with territories, communities and their capacity to imagine possible futures.
Working across exhibitions, institutions and long-term research projects, he approaches curating as a process of inquiry rather than the illustration of a predetermined thesis. His projects often begin with a territory and a period of immersion: meeting artists, inhabitants, researchers and local communities, identifying overlooked narratives and allowing these encounters to reshape the initial curatorial proposition. At the heart of his practice is a conviction that art can create spaces in which established narratives are unsettled and other ways of inhabiting and acting upon the world can emerge.
His work has led him to develop projects in contexts ranging from volcanic territories to post-conflict Mosul and the Belgian coast, bringing artistic practices into dialogue with scientific research, local knowledge and wider social and environmental transformations.
Leo Marin is the curator of Beaufort27, the 9th edition of the Beaufort Triennial on the Belgian coast, where his project "A Shared Horizon" considers the coastline as a shifting territory from which to collectively question how futures are imagined and constructed.
Since 2026, he has been Director of URDLA in Lyon, where he develops an artistic programme combining exhibitions, production, research and collaboration with artists. His institutional work extends his curatorial practice through a sustained interest in the conditions that enable artists to experiment, produce and develop new forms of thought.
Previous projects include "Les Portes de Mossoul", developed between Iraq and France; The Possible Island (on Vulcano island - Sicily) , an art-and-science research programme engaging artists with volcanologists and oceanologists as part of a longer investigation into insularity and relations for the construction of possible new worlds.
Alongside his curatorial and institutional practice, Leo Marin writes regularly on contemporary art and artists. Writing forms are integral part of his work, allowing personal experience, encounters and artworks to become sites from which critical thought can emerge.
He is based in France and works internationally.