Ilari Laamanen is currently at the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York, curating and overseeing projects in New York and abroad. Recent projects include Nearness, a multisensory performance dealing with virtual communication and physical presence by artist-duo OK Do presented at New Museum’s IDEAS CITY festival (2013); and Fashion Interventions, a symposium and exhibition about the interconnections of contemporary art and fashion for Parsons the New School for Design in November 2013. In June 2011, he founded the project space XL Art Space in Helsinki, and in January 2012 co-curated a process-based exhibition and accompanying lecture series dealing with exhibition-making outside institutions for the Academy of Fine Arts in Finland. Recently, he was part of the curatorial team at the Finnish Museum of Photography and produced an art festival dealing with art and labor, which was held at the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art. Laamanen received his MA in Curating, Managing, and Mediating Art at Aalto University and his BA in Media studies and Art History at the University of Turku in Finland.