Banner image by Hugo Sousa, sourced on Unsplash.

What motivated you to pursue an MA at Sotheby’s Institute?

I wanted to bridge my academic background in contemporary art theory with a sharper understanding of the art world’s commercial and institutional frameworks. Sotheby’s Institute offered the rare combination of rigorous critical discourse and practical market insight that provided me with the tools I needed to eventually establish and run my own gallery.

Looking back, how did the MA Art Business program at Sotheby’s Institute equip you with the tools and knowledge to navigate the art industry?

The program demystified the art market by combining critical analysis with direct exposure to industry practices. Courses on market structures, collection management, and art law gave me a solid operational foundation, while case studies and site visits provided a practical understanding of how decisions are made at every level. This blend of theory and real-world application has been essential in navigating the complexities of running a gallery.

In what ways did the network you built during your time in the program support you in launching and growing your business?

The most valuable part of the network was connecting with peers who shared similar ambitions and challenges. Those relationships created a space for exchanging ideas, testing strategies, and navigating the realities of the art world together. While the practical impact on the gallery’s launch was limited, the sense of community and mutual support has been lasting.

Your gallery, DES BAINS, spotlights artists whose work delves into psychogeography—examining themes of movement, borders, land, and belonging. What drew you to create a gallery rooted in this particular focus?

I’ve always been drawn to practices that explore how geography shapes identity and experience—not just in physical terms, but through memory, politics, and cultural narratives. Psychogeography offers a lens that is both deeply personal and inherently political, allowing artists to map histories, migrations, and displacements in ways that resist simplification. Building a gallery around this focus was a way to commit to work that engages critically with place and belonging while remaining open to multiple, intersecting perspectives.

Supporting emerging and historically underrepresented artists is a core value of DES BAINS. What makes this commitment so vital to the gallery’s vision?

Emerging and historically underrepresented artists often bring perspectives that challenge dominant cultural narratives, yet they face systemic barriers to visibility and sustainability. Centering their work is not just an ethical choice—it’s a way to ensure the gallery remains a site of discovery, dialogue, and critical engagement. This commitment keeps the program intellectually alive and responsive to the complexities of the present.

What kind of understanding or reflection do you hope to spark in viewers through the exhibitions at DES BAINS?

I aim for exhibitions to create a space where viewers can reconsider the geographies—physical, political, and emotional—that shape their lives. Rather than offering definitive answers, the works invite layered interpretations, encouraging audiences to think critically about place, identity, and movement in ways that connect the personal to broader social and historical contexts.

How do you anticipate the global conversation around psychogeography will shift in the coming years, particularly within contemporary art practice?

As climate change, migration, and geopolitical instability continue to reshape borders and landscapes, psychogeography will increasingly intersect with environmental justice and decolonial discourse. I expect artists to push beyond the urban dérive to address contested territories, extractive industries, and displaced communities—mapping not just movement, but the power structures embedded in space. The field will likely become more collaborative, interdisciplinary, and urgent in tone.

Who are a few artists that you’re particularly excited about right now?

  • Lucia Farrow, whose ceramics and photographic works probe the politics of space and perception, often merging tactile materiality with narrative to create unsettling, curious encounters
  • Carmela De Falco, who uses a conceptual approach to subvert and reveal overlooked realities tied to labor, care, and everyday materiality
  • Bryan Giuseppi Rodriguez Cambana, who creates immersive multimedia environments exploring diasporic identity and collective memory through storytelling and sensory engagement
  • Francesco Pacelli, whose sculptures and installations—shaped from ceramics, metals, and synthetic materials—imagine speculative ecologies that bridge geology, mythology, and spatial perception
  • Sebastián Espejo, whose practice engages themes of displacement, memory, and material transformation with emotional depth and layered resonance.

What advice or tips would you give to Sotheby’s Institute applicants?

Treat the program not just as a stepping stone into the art world, but as a laboratory for testing your ideas, values, and ambitions. The coursework will give you frameworks and tools, but the real transformation happens in the way you engage—with your peers, with the city, and with the wider cultural landscape. Be curious, ask difficult questions, and resist the pressure to fit into a single professional mold. The art world is full of inherited structures; use this time to decide which ones you want to work within, which to push against, and which to reinvent altogether.