Gema Alava (b. 1973 Madrid, Spain) is a multidisciplinary artist, lecturer and writer based in New York City since 2001. In 2012 she was appointed Cultural Adviser to the World Council of Peoples for the United Nations.

She has worked for over a decade at the Education Departments of the museums MoMA -The Museum of Modern Art-, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art and Morgan Library & Museum in New York City, where she leads talks for different audiences.

In 2020 she published the influential book “Cómo perder el miedo en un museo” (Ed. El Ojo de la Cultura) presented at the Cervantes Institute in London, England; at the Museum of Anthropology and Contemporary Art, MAAC Museum, in Guayaquil invited by the International Council of Museums ICOM, Ecuador, on the International Day of Museums; and at the International Council of Archives, ICA. 

Her work, in the form of installation, drawing, photography and art projects, deals with what she calls “contradictory truths”, and the capacity to “create a maximum by reversing a minimum.”^[1] Álava’s art projects, in the form of dialogues, verbal descriptions, rumors and random encounters, explore notions of trust and intimacy, and use language as a medium to investigate the interconnections that exist between public, private, educational and interpretative aspects of art.

Álava has studied at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain (BFA Painting, MA Education); The Chelsea College of Art and Design, The London Institute, England (BFA Erasmus Fellow); The San Francisco Art Institute, USA (MFA, New Genres); Academy of Art University, USA (MFA, Painting); MIT, Vienna, Austria (Postgraduate Bootcamp Program); and YALE School of Management (Women’s Leadership Program).