Dr. Jana Johanna Haeckel is an internationally recognized art historian, curator, and lecturer specializing in photography and new media.
Her research and exhibitions explore image and body politics in contemporary art, addressing the evolving ethics of photography in the digital age and highlighting artistic practices that challenge historical and colonial narratives through innovative archival research. She teaches at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent, Belgium, and serves as an associate researcher at the Lieven Gevaert Research Centre For Photography
Prior to this, she served as director of Photoforum Pasquart, in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland (December 2021 - July 2023), where she has curated solo exhibitions with Bianca Baldi, Sheida Soleimani, Karla Hiraldo Voleau, Emmanuel Van der Auwera, Salvatore Vitale, among others, and established a residency program on photography and climate change, in collaboration with the Swiss Council for Arts Pro Helvetia in Johannesburg and Cairo. Prior to this, she has worked for the Cultural Department of the Goethe-Institut in Brussels, where she curated the nomadic art program Perruche (2018-2021) and supervised the international postcolonial project "Everything Passes Except the Past" (2019- 2020).
She was guest curator at Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung (2025) and Pinakothek der Moderne Munich (2020-2021) and co-curator of the annual Karma Ltd. Extended-art programme at Acud Gallery Berlin (2018). Moreover, she served as project manager for the public programme of the Belgian Pavilion with Dirk Braeckman at the 57th Venice Biennale (2017) and was doctoral researcher at UC Louvain/KU Leuven for the project "Photofilmic Images in Contemporary Art and Visual Culture" (2012-2016).
She lectured at University of Applied Science and Art Dortmund, Université Catholique de Louvain and LUCA School of Arts Brussels. She has guest lectured at various universities and art schools, such as HFBK Hamburg, Universität der Künste Berlin and Freie Universität Berlin.
She is an advising editor-at-large of Trigger magazine and a member of AICA Belgium & AICA International. Her essays and reviews have been published in The British Journal of Photography, Camera Austria, EIKON, Trigger, Monopol, Mousse Magazine and elsewhere.
Education
2006
Literature Studies at Sorbonne Paris
2011
MA in Art History, Comparative Literature and French at Humboldt Universität and
Freie Universität Berlin
2012
Post-graduate Degree in Curatorial Studies at RUB and Kunstsammlung NRW
2016
PhD in Art History at UC Louvain