Ellen Blumenstein (1976) is an independent curator and member of the curatorial collective THE OFFICE (with Katharina Fichtner, Fiona Geuß, Maribel Lopez, Kathrin Meyer). From 1998-2005 she worked as a curator for KW – Institute for Contemporary Art and since curated the exhibitions ‘Between Two Deaths’ at ZKM in Karlsruhe (with Felix Ensslin, 2007), and the summer academy ‘Agulhas Negras – On the Necessity to Discuss Social Functions of Contemporary Art’ in São Paulo/Campos do Jordão, Brazil (2008), amongst others. In 2010, she founded SALON POPULAIRE, a space for joint conversation and thinking in Berlin. She is the curator of the Icelandic Pavilion for the Venice Biennial 2011 where she will be presenting a solo-exhibition by the artist duo Libia Castro/Ólafur Ólafsson.