ja balaguer

John Alexis Balaguer is an independent curator, art writer, and cultural worker based in Manila. He is the founder of Curare Art Space, a curatorial agency dedicated to supporting contemporary art in the Philippines. His research and practice are grounded in curatorial pedagogies, speculative inquiry, autoethnography, and decolonial frameworks across the heritage, museum, and gallery ecologies. He currently teaches at the University of the Philippines - College of Fine Arts (Department of Theory) and has written critical texts for Art Asia Pacific, Ocula, Art+, and Kanto. He is the recipient of the Purita Kalaw Ledesma Award for Art Criticism in 2019, was the Art Writer-in-Residence at the Salzburg Art Association in Austria (2024), and was a Fellow for Art Criticism at the Asian Cultural Council in New York (2025). Alongside his curatorial and academic work, he is a certified expressive arts facilitator from The Arts & Health Institute Philippines, in partnership with The European Graduate School, where he develops contemplative art practices for creative wellbeing.