Mela Dávila Freire is a researcher, curator, writer, and translator. Her research focuses on art archives and artist publications, and her specific interests include revisiting the history of artist publications from a feminist perspective, as well as the theoretical and practical intersections between archives and art collections, and the ideological biases hidden in archival structures.
She has published extensively on her topics of interest. Her most recent books are Off-Register: Publishing Experiments of Latin American Women Artists 1960 – 1990 (New York: Center for Book Arts, 2023) and Mission and Commission – Documenta and the Art Market 1955 – 1968 (Barcelona: Polígrafa, 2022).
She has also worked closely in and for art institutions: she was Head of Publications and Director of the Center for Studies at the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), and Director of Public Activities at the Reina Sofía Museum. And she has been consultant for the Documenta Archive (Kassel, Germany), the German History Museum (Berlin, Germany), the Lafuente Archive (Santander, Spain), the Reina Sofía Museum (Madrid, Spain), the Institut Valencià d’Art Modern – IVAM (Valencia, Spain), the Biblioteca de las Artes (Guayaquil, Ecuador), the Museo Vostell Malpartida (Cáceres, Spain) and other public and private institutions and collections.
She holds a degree in English and German Philology (UAB) and a postgraduate degree in Publishing (Universitat Pompeu Fabra), and is currently working on her dissertation.