London W8 4NA
UK
Upė Foundation is delighted to announce the appointment of Diāna Mikāne (Latvia) and Martyna Ratnik (Lithuania) as Curatorial Fellows at the Southbank Centre’s Hayward Gallery and Camden Art Centre, London, respectively. They are the first fellows from the Baltic region to join UK art institutions through Upė Foundation’s Curatorial Fellowship Programme.
Upė Foundation’s Curatorial Fellowship Programme supports the next generation of curators through full-time, embedded roles within institutions, combining professional development, research, exhibition-making and public programming. Developed with international partner institutions, the programme produces sustained opportunities for emerging practitioners and new ideas to circulate between the Baltic region and contemporary art communities internationally.
The fellowships at the Hayward Gallery and Camden Art Centre are structured as full-time 12–18 month roles, placing each early-career curator directly within the day-to-day life of the art institution.
In her new role, Diāna Mikāne will undertake research on artists from the Baltic region and beyond, supporting the development and delivery of major international exhibitions and programmes at the Hayward Gallery. The Fellowship is designed to broaden her skill set across the institution, from public engagement to the practical training involved in operations such as producing interpretation materials.
At Camden Art Centre, Martyna Ratnik joins the exhibitions team, bringing her specialist knowledge and research into the institution’s curatorial work while contributing to exhibition-making, events and research. The Fellowship provides an environment for professional development, learning and first-hand experience within one of the UK’s leading spaces for contemporary visual art.
The two Fellows were selected through multi-stage recruitment processes. Final appointments were made following in-person interviews with representatives of each organisation. For the Hayward Gallery Fellowship: Yung Ma, Senior Curator, Hayward Gallery; Suzanna Petot, Assistant Curator, Hayward Gallery; Adomas Narkevičius, Founding Director, Upė Foundation; and Justas Janauskas, Founding Patron, Upė Foundation; and for the Camden Art Centre Fellowship, Martin Clark, Director, Camden Art Centre; Gina Buenfeld-Murley, Exhibitions Curator, Camden Art Centre; and Adomas Narkevičius, Founding Director, Upė Foundation.
About the Curatorial Fellows
Diāna Mikāne is a curator and artist from Riga, Latvia. Through situated research and collaboration, her practice engages with parafiction as a mode of expression and the politics of space, often in relation to post-socialist conditions in the Baltic region and beyond. Recent work includes exhibitions and artistic projects such as High Beams in Timing Architecture at Part Time Gallery, Riga (2026), Forever Days in Invisible Labour at the National Gallery of Art, Vilnius (2026); Wish Upon a Shooting Star at Living Room, Athens (2024); I hope this email finds you well at InTheCloset, Vilnius (2024); Trembling Ground at VARES Architecture Residency, Valga (2024); as well as contributions to exhibition production at Nida Art Colony of the Vilnius Academy of Arts (2023–24). Mikāne holds an MA from the Art Academy of Latvia and received the ACADEMIA Award, which supported her curatorial fellowship at PUBLICS, Helsinki (2024–25).
Martyna Ratnik is a Lithuanian cultural worker based between London and Vilnius. With a focus on moving image creation, curation and criticism, her practice searches for ways history can be embodied and transgressed. In addition to working as part of the London Short Film Festival’s curatorial team, Martyna has been developing her independent praxis. Among others, her artistic and curatorial projects have been previously presented at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), the Independent Vilnius Cinematheque “Meno Avilys”, Lithuania’s National Gallery of Art, European Media Art Festival, BFI London Film Festival, as well as LUX Moving Image. Martyna is the winner of Lithuania’s 2025 Visual Art Criticism Awards, and has been invited as a jury member the year after. She has recently graduated from RCA’s City Design course with a Master’s Thesis on open form institutional design, and is also an alumni of Rupert’s Alternative Education Programme.
Upė Foundation is preparing the next round of its Curatorial Fellowship Programme, expanded to include a Baltic artist residency, followed by a solo exhibition, in partnership with Gasworks, London, with open calls to be announced in Autumn 2026.
Press contact: Isabel Davies, isabel@sam-talbot.com
Upė Foundation is a London-based platform that draws currents between global and Baltic (Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian) art communities, setting new artistic, curatorial and research possibilities in motion. Upė focuses on horizontal, long-term exchange through a range of partnerships, fellowships and initiatives, amplifying new ideas, risk-taking work and underexplored perspectives. Upė is drawn to a field that is living, cross-disciplinary and imaginative, open to encounters between practices, contexts and communities.
About the Hayward Gallery
The Southbank Centre’s Hayward Gallery is a world-renowned contemporary art gallery and Brutalist landmark. Since its 1968 opening by Queen Elizabeth II, the Gallery has built a legacy of showcasing the world’s most daring and innovative artists, including Anish Kapoor, Bridget Riley, Mike Nelson, Linder, Lee Bul, Tracey Emin and Yoshitomo Nara. Known for its career-defining solo shows and dial-shifting group exhibitions, such as Dear Earth, In The Black Fantastic, The Other Story and Psycho Buildings, the Hayward remains a vital platform for established and emerging voices. Designed by a team of young architects including Dennis Crompton, Warren Chalk, and Ron Herron, and named after Sir Isaac Hayward, the gallery invites audiences to experience art in one of the UK’s most unique architectural settings.
About the Southbank Centre
The Southbank Centre is the UK’s largest multi-arts centre and engages the most diverse audiences of any performing arts organisation in the UK. Our biggest venue, the Royal Festival Hall (2,700 seats) is the lasting legacy of the 1951 Festival of Britain and the ambition and values of that project—that arts, ideas, innovation and culture can heal communities and should be available and accessible to everyone—are still our guiding principles today. The Southbank Centre is uniquely able to offer a wide-ranging, inclusive and world-class artistic programme spanning contemporary visual arts, music, dance, performance, literature, comedy and spoken word across the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room, the Hayward Gallery and our free spaces. We are also home to the National Poetry Library, the National Academy for Social Prescribing (NASP), two resident organisations (Kinetika Bloco and Tomorrow’s Warriors) and six resident orchestras (Aurora Orchestra, Chineke! Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Philharmonia Orchestra).
The Southbank Centre's 75th Anniversary Season is supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies.
Facebook: Southbank Centre / Instagram: @southbankcentre / TikTok: @southbank.centre
About Camden Art Centre
Since 1965 Camden Art Centre has been a place for art and the people that make it. Its world-renowned exhibitions programme supports artists at every stage of their careers, enabling them to make and show work that is relevant for today: brave, challenging, engaging and vital. Originally built, in 1890, as a public library, the building now combines historic architecture with open, modern spaces with free entry for all.
Camden Art Centre has always led the way supporting artists and audiences to create and engage with the most vital and inspiring contemporary art and culture today.
Instagram: @camdenartcentre / YouTube: Camden Art Centre
