Lassla Esquivel: Connecting Peripheries Through Curatorial Strategy

This interview is part of the series "In the Making: Conversations on Latin American Art in the UK".

Research, Interviews and Writing by Raquel Gonzalez Eizmendiz

Curatorial & Editorial Direction by Gabriela Román González & Mónica Núñez

Lassla Esquivel at the exhibition Constructed Otherness, London, United Kingdom, 2015

Lassla Esquivel is a UK-based art historian, curator, and researcher whose work moves between academia, the art market, and curatorial experimentation. She founded Periferia Projects, a platform that builds bridges between emerging art markets, institutions, and spaces across Latin America, the UK, and beyond. “What interests me is generating conversations between artists, between audiences, between geographies,” she says. Her curatorial practice is rooted in connection: across scales, disciplines, and boundaries.

Let’s start with Periferia Projects. How did it emerge, and what is its core focus?

I trained as an art historian and started my career in commercial galleries in Mexico, eventually opening my own space. When I first moved to Paris and then to London, I originally thought I would open a gallery here too. But I realized that the gallery model is saturated, and that Latin American art is not yet fully integrated into the UK or European markets, not in the way it is in New York, for example.

So, I decided to create Periferia Projects as a curatorial platform. That model gives me flexibility, I can move between commercial and institutional spaces, collaborate with other curators or galleries, and design projects that respond to specific contexts. I am not locked into one identity. Although not always at the same scale, I try to make the projects well-rounded. I think the word “round” works in English for what I mean. I aim for each project to have potential in three areas: a commercial aspect that could lead to another opportunity, an institutional component, and a more pedagogical or educational space. I intend to cover those three parts in every project.

The name Periferia is deliberate. It speaks to geographic, economic, and discursive margins, Latin America, yes, but also other emerging regions like Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, or the Middle East. I have done projects in Abu Dhabi, Paris, Budapest, and London. But Latin America is my grounding, my long-term commitment. That is where I come from, and it is where I always return.

What role do partnerships play in your projects?

We are always generating partnerships. It is essential, not just logistically, but conceptually. Because I work independently and on a relatively small scale, partnerships are how I expand the reach, depth, and sustainability of a project. Every exhibition I do involves collaborators, whether it is students, former colleagues, institutions, embassies, or even friends. For each project, I aim to cover these three dimensions: the commercial, the institutional, and the pedagogical. That means bringing different kinds of partners on board, each contributing something distinct.

For example, I once collaborated with a friend who had just opened a photo lab in Mexico. Rather than just hiring him to print works, we made it a partnership: I featured his lab in the project’s communication, and he offered us support in return. That kind of reciprocal relationship, between scales, between contexts, is exactly what I try to cultivate. It is how you build ecosystems.

You have worked closely with many Latin American artists, both emerging and established. Could you share a project that captures what you aim to do through Periferia?

Exhibition Juntas, Maison de L'Amerique Latine, Paris, France, 2022.

Multi-part exhibition with the artist Alicia Paz.

One of the most meaningful projects I have done was a year-long collaboration with the artist Alicia Paz. It was a multi-part exhibition that unfolded in three locations: Southend-on-Sea, Scunthorpe, and Paris, and was supported by the Arts Council and Fluxus Art Projects, which funds Franco-British collaborations. Each venue added something new. In Southend, for instance, Alicia incorporated portraits of local swimmers into her series in dialogue with a local collection of swimwear held by the Beecroft Gallery. In Scunthorpe, we explored migration through the figure of the eel, which, like ourselves, migrates across the Atlantic.

Lassla Esquivel and Alicia Paz at the exhibition River Makers, Southend-on-Sea, Beecroft Art Gallery, United Kingdom, 2021.

That project was curatorial, institutional, and deeply research-driven, but it also generated new relationships, new audiences, and extended Alicia’s practice. For me, that is the ideal: when a show does not just present work, but responds to its context, creates connections, and evolves as it travels.

One final question: What has stayed with you from all these projects? What keeps you going?

It is the conversations, the connections, that moment when a project sparks something unexpected: a curator discovering an artist for the first time, or an encounter that leads to years of collaboration. I have seen exhibitions evolve into public sculptures, and residencies turn into museum acquisitions.

I have always believed in working across peripheries, not just geographic, but also institutional and discursive. My goal is to create spaces where art does not have to conform to a single mould, where collaboration takes precedence over competition, and where visibility is not dictated solely by market trends.

Lassla Esquivel is a UK-based art historian, researcher and curator. She is a specialist in contemporary art and the art market.  In 2016, she founded Periferia Projects and has curated and produced exhibitions in Latin America, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, Europe and the UK. Her academic trajectory includes lecturing at prestigious institutions such as Christie's Education (London); IESA arts & culture (Paris); CSM (London); Sotheby's Institute (London); CENTRO/Sotheby's Institute (Mexico/New York); and led the first professionalization course of Curatorial Studies at Art and Skills Institute (Riyadh). Currently, she is the course leader of the MA in Art Business at Kingston University (London).