Demetra Ignatiou

Biography

Demetra is an independent Museologist and Curator who collaborates with museums and cultural institutions to develop exhibitions and public programmes. Her practice explores alternative ways of engaging with art and heritage both within and beyond the museum space. She embraces critical approaches to cultural production focusing on the interpretation of contested heritage and the decolonisation of exhibition practices and museum narratives.

Since 2023 Demetra has been working as an Associate Curator at the Bank of Cyprus Cultural Foundation (BoCCF) where she co-curated the exhibition Cyprus Insula History – Memory – Reality. The exhibition weaves connections and narratives that highlight elements of Cyprus’s history and contemporary reality—each contributing to the shaping of its inherent insular identity. Demetra is currently one of two editors working on the forthcoming exhibition publication and is also responsible for implementing key aspects of its public programme. She is also part of a team developing the concept for a fishing museum in a coastal community in Cyprus, working closely with local residents and fishermen to shape a project rooted in community voices and lived experiences.

In 2023 and in 2024, Demetra collaborated with the Cyprus Museum, for the curation of two temporary exhibitions. The exhibition We Met – Love, Death and Meta brought together antiquities, contemporary artworks, and a VR installation, with a focus on engaging teenage audiences while the exhibition FIVE aimed to increase the appeal and accessibility of cultural heritage through encounters with real individuals from the Cypriot past, based on bioarchaeological research.

At the British Museum

During her time at the British Museum, Demetra was based in the Greece and Rome Department and her UK partner placement was spent at Lincoln Museum and University of Nottingham Museum.

Demetra’s participation in the International Training Programme was generously supported by the Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Charitable Trust.